Metal Nin
by Firedamaged
Summary: Bloodline Naruto has the power to control metal and an inclination towards the powers of SCIENCE! Inspired by Nin Tech, and M Rated because I never know where I'm gonna go with this. Expect humour and crackiness to abound, enjoy!
1. A Bloodline Awakened

Hiruzen Sarutobi, Third Hokage of Konohagakure, was not impressed by the actions of his successor. The man had nobly and virtuously sacrificed himself for the good of the village and that he had no problem with, however he had neglected to specify a successor and so Sarutobi had been reinstated as no other suitable candidate could be found. He almost wept manly tears when he encountered the piles of neglected paperwork the damn blonde had left for him to deal with. That could be sorted out later, for now he had a more complicated problem to deal with and said problem was currently drooling on his official Hokage robes of State.

Hiruzen shifted the small child's weight in his arms, being careful not to wake the boy. He steeled his features one last time before stepping through the crimson curtains that separated him from the balcony outside ad the assembled masses of Konoha's population. He had a speech to make.

**3 hours later**

Now he really had a problem. He'd had to pass a law off the top of his head just to keep the newborn in his arms safe. How could the people turn like that? How could they be so blind? He had grown up in this village, he had lived amongst them for all the years of his life and he had never seen such unbridled and unanimous hatred, and directed at one so young! It chilled the elder Sarutobi's heart.

Precautions would have to be taken. None of his previous plans were viable. He could not risk the boy's true identity in the hands of a populous that hated him, who knew what they'd unleash if they let it slip, intentionally or otherwise to the wrong people. War was not an option, especially after tonight. No peace was called for, peace and time to rebuild. Anonymity was the key. Neither of the boy's parents had survived the night, he would have to go into an orphanage, but not under his true name. He'd already been named by his parents but their secret relationship ensured that few if any would know the child's first name, plus if he were given his mother's family name there would be none able to link the boy back to his father. Until they looked at him.

The blonde hair was the biggest giveaway, there weren't many blondes in Fire Country. Well there was the Yamanaka Clan… Maybe, if no one looked to close he could pass as a bastard of one of the clan's distant relatives. Ah well, never mind. There was nothing to be done about that. There was only one thing left to worry about. The Bloodline.

It was no secret how Bloodlines were created in the elemental countries, it was just that none spoke of it. Interactions with demons on any scale tended to warp the very physical nature of all those around at the time. Sometimes this led to what were now called Bloodlines and those in the same condition as the child were the most likely candidates for a new one or the amplification of a current one. The fact that the boy was now the _third_ generation of the family to… the thought didn't bear thinking about.

Reassuring himself that the matter wouldn't have to be dealt with for years to come, or maybe not at all, Hiruzen began filling out the paperwork to have the child placed in the care of an orphanage. A trusted orphanage. As he was filling out the child's name a flash of light, as though reflected from his lamp made him look down at the boy. Upon seeing nothing he frowned and turned back to the paper, filling out the first in a long list of questions. _Name: Naruto Uzumaki._

**Two Months Later**

The night was cold. It was the coldest it had been for years and the chill showed no signs of abating any time soon. Every sensible, right thinking and mentally sound person was either already in bed or sat before a roaring fire. There was a crowd outside the Hishimoto Orphanage.

As crowds went, this one was quiet, almost unnaturally so. Even without the noise a sudden tense feeling of anticipation could be felt spreading through those assembled as the shutters on a third floor window opened. This was what they were all waiting for. Finally they would have their justice. Revenge would be doled out and their most honoured Hokage's work would be finished. They would avenge their hero, this night, at last!

Something was off. The one who had opened the window had not returned. Surely by now there should be some… The sounds of grunting and effort drifted down to those assembled below and most blanched in sudden assumption. Their intentions weren't exactly pure but _that_ was just… Then a very heavy _thunk_ was heard, followed by scraping and more grunts of effort. Eventually a figure appeared in the dim window frame, bent over and breathing heavily. From what they could see of the man's face in the dim light of the street lamps he appeared to be under great strain. Eventually, and with almost comical slowness, the man lifted an object onto the windowsill and paused to regain his breath, panting and flushed in the chill night air. The object he had lifted could not be clearly seen but shone with reflected light and left everyone present wondering what the man was playing at. This had not been part of the plan.

Eventually, the man steeled himself, set his shoulder against the small object and, with great effort, shoved it out of the window and into the night. The object dropped with such speed that those nearest instinctively took several steps back, and struck the earth as though particularly enraged and aggrieved by it. Everyone clustered around the small crater left by the object's descent and attempted to peer over each others shoulders for a look at the thing. It appeared that their colleague had gone quite mad and decided to throw a life-sized lead statue of a baby out of the orphanage's window. What the hell was he playing at, and where was the…? The statue moved. Then it began to wail and cry.

Several shrieks and cries of alarm erupted from members of the crowd and alerted the patrolling Military Police of their presence. The crowd quickly dispersed. A very young looking MP wearing a brand new chunin flak jacket arrived on scene and looked down at the small, shiny, crying thing on the ground outside of the Hishimoto Orphanage. Looking up at the open window and then around at the obvious, to a ninja, signs of a large gathering he came to a quick decision and bent to lift the child.

Several minutes and a highly overpowered chakra strengthening jutsu later, the young ninja stood before the Third Hokage, the child wrapped in blankets and the twisted, mangled remains of a kunai on the table separating them.

"From the weight I would surmise lead as the core," the nin was saying, "with possibly a titanium outer shell judging from the remains of the kunai. Either that or an alloy or possibly a whole new element of some description. Whatever it is though, it is definitely chakra-enhanced as well as being chakra created."

The child, no longer on the cold, hard ground had fallen back to sleep and was slowly regaining his original colour.

"He will have to be trained as soon as he is able to learn." The ageing Hokage announced to no-one in particular.

"You don't think it could be…" The ninja halted at the glowering look from his superior.

"It appears instinctive at present. There is no sign of _its_ influence and I would appreciate it if you would not start undue rumours or panic by even suggesting otherwise."

It was much later that night when the young child was returned to his room within the orphanage. On a neighbouring rooftop, a black-cloaked figure settled down into as comfortable a position as could be achieved on a slate rooftop and waited for the dawn shift trade-over. Naruto Uzumaki would spend the foreseeable future under silent, watchful guard.

**Six Years Later**

Naruto Uzumaki had been kicked out of yet another orphanage for 'injuring fellow residents', 'bullying' and 'damaging orphanage property'. Hiruzen had pulled the associated files and had discovered all the instances of injury had apparently been breaks and fractures of the carpel and tarsal bones of those involved, as though they had punched or kicked something inherently more solid and strong than they had expected. The instances of property damage had involved the twisting, snapping or bending of various knives and fire pokers as if they had been struck against something inherently tougher than themselves. One rather amusing piece of 'evidence' was a frying pan that had an image of Naruto's shocked visage firmly indented into its base. Then there were reports of him apparently 'eating' various metal objects, from cutlery to saucepans, that seemed to just vanish whilst he was around.

Still, it didn't matter. Naruto had been banned from or kicked out of every reputable orphanage and care home in Konoha and that meant the Third Hokage, still unable to find a decent replacement for the position, had to find alternative housing for the boy before anyone else took it upon themselves to spirit the boy away to parts and influences unknown.

Emancipation was one option, but that was filled with far more troubles than it was worth. No one was prepared to offer the lad a decent home. Many wanted to enslave or indoctrinate him to some degree, but that was obviously not acceptable. Hiruzen couldn't adopt the boy, not without raising suspicions any further than his interest in the boy already did. There seemed to be nowhere in the village that he could… a form caught his eye.

It was a rather innocuous form and, if it hadn't had the bright red stamp across the thing it would probably have gone ignored like the majority littering the man's desk. It was approval for the demolition of an apartment building in the poorer part of Konoha. The building had been emptied already, the residents moved out or rehoused, and this form was merely a formality to be brought to his attention before the whole thing went up in smoke to pave the way for a new shopping centre or some such.

A flicker of an idea sparked in the back of the old Sarutobi's mind… maybe…

**Several days later**

Naruto couldn't believe it, he had his own apartment building! Not just an apartment, a whole building! Apparently no one wanted to live there and so, because of his getting thrown out of another orphanage, he'd been given access to the whole building to do with as he pleased. Old man Hokage had gone on about some boring laws to do with clans and compounds and things called extenuating circumstances, but he'd fallen asleep at that point. Honestly, why did old people have to make cool things sound so boring?

Anyway, all of that was beside the point because, as well as his cool new apartment building, old man Hokage had promised Naruto someone would come by later to begin his ninja lessons. He had to control his blood or something. It sounded awesome, and it was ninja training, DOUBLE AWESOME!

First things first though, he had to find somewhere to live in his new building. It had to be somewhere big, and have a balcony, and not smell like ass and musty farts… He looked into one room. Meh, this'd do. Right, second things second, time to find some stainless steel, that stuff is tasty


	2. A Path Discovered

**Konohagakure no Sato**

It had been eleven years since the day of the Kyuubi Attack. Eleven years of peace for the village hidden within the leaves. Eleven years since their hero, the Yondaime Hokage of Konoha had sacrificed his life to end the threat of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, not just to his village, but to the world into which it had been unleashed. To mark that day and celebrate such a marvellous achievement the people of Konoha hold a festival, every year to honour all those who died so that they might survive even in the face of certain death that was the Kyuubi no Yoko.

Every year on the tenth of october everyone gathers to celebrate the defeat of their foe. Everyone except for Naruto Uzumaki, that is. Every year he spends his birthday, the tenth of october, running from mobs of angry, drunk villagers trying to do him some serious harm. It wasn't that they were likely to succeed, what with Naruto's inherent defence, but he knew full well the weaknesses inherent in his own bloodline. Often a bit of luck or an observant mind was all it took and bang; that could be the end of him.

Naruto had been given some basic chakra instruction at the age of six, under the orders of the Hokage, supreme dictator of Konoha and one of Naruto's very few true friends. Unfortunately as the Hokage had merely ordered that he be instructed to the point where he could control his bloodline, the moment Naruto had shown any degree of ability whatsoever his instructor had deemed him 'in control' and stopped the lessons entirely. Naruto didn't care. He'd been given the basics, all he had to do was experiment and he'd have his own kick-ass jutsu, dattebayo!

His bloodline had been dubbed by the Hokage in one of his meetings with the boy as the Metaruton Kekkei Genkai, or Metal Release Bloodline Limit, despite Naruto's protests and insistence that it be called the 'Super-Mega-Awesome Bloodline'. One smack upside the head later and Hiruzen Sarutobi was sat across from a silent lumpy-headed boy paying him his full attention. He'd then gone on to explain how nearly everything in the world contained metal in one form or another, from metal supports and fastenings in the Hokage's desk, to metal wires in modern electronics and gadgets and even the tools used by ninja such as kunai, shuriken, caltrops and swords. Naruto had perked up and exclaimed how cool it would be if he could turn people's weapons against them, but then had completely about-faced and asked the old man what he meant by electronics. The Hokage had told him he didn't have time to explain but had rooted around in one of the book shelves in his office before producing a small electronics DIY manual he had bought when he grew tired of his computer 'breaking down' and had thought it would make a good excuse to avoid paperwork for a while.

*shudder* The dreaded paperwork *shudder*.

The next year had seen Naruto taking apart and rebuilding almost every electronic gadget in his apartment complex. Then he'd gone to town on some of the fifth floor walls looking for the internal wiring. That, as well as several chakra exercises he'd been given by his tutors in the small time they'd spent with him, had led to him creating his first few jutsu. The Metaruton Henge had come first and he'd shocked the Hokage by turning his hands into a screwdriver and hammer when they'd next met. The old man had bought him ramen in celebration. Next had been the Metaru Sozo or 'Metal Creation' technique which had immediately spawned the Metaru Bushin or 'Metal Clone'. He'd used the first to literally spew forth tonnes of metal from his body, but it left him quite tired. The Hokage had once more treated him to ramen after Naruto had shown him how he'd re-wired his entire apartment building, added a gigantic fence around the place and tried to make a copy of his radio. Unfortunately the radio had all sorts of bits in it that weren't metal and Naruto had no idea how to make it work without them. He could, it was discovered, recreate any metal, with some exceptions, he had previously 'eaten' but he was still reluctant to do so in front of anyone. He'd then gotten around to the idea of mass producing gold and becoming insanely rich. The Hokage had then launched into a speech about economics or something. Naruto had gotten bored and fallen asleep. All he'd been able to make out was that doing so would be a bad idea, especially if anyone found out he could.

The next year Naruto had entered into the Konoha ninja academy. As luck would have it, his teachers hated him and constantly threw him out of classes for minor reasons such as breathing, attempting to learn and answering questions. He did accompany the class on one of their outings to the academy section of the Konoha library. That was, however, only due to the fact that with a permission slip signed by the Hokage himself they knew that they had better have a damn good reason not to let the boy go. It was there that Naruto met someone who would become another of his truest friends.

**Konoha Jutsu Library; Kenjutsu section; Metallurgy Subsection**

Naruto scanned the row of shelves for anything that looked helpful. To be honest it all looked helpful in the long run, but first he wanted something simple and basic that he could understand, he'd get around to the more complicated tomes and scrolls later. He didn't think he'd ever read the mammoth volume; _'Advantages of 1.48% Carbon Steel Over 1.49% Carbon Steel, A Treatise by Hanzou Shimora, Volume 1 of 29'_ though, and in fact wondered why the hell it was in the academy section of the library anyway. He was about half way down the shelf when he heard muttering from the other side and, wondering who it was, leant a bit closer to hear.

"… yes they must. We can't have the pointies lose their edge, no we can't. Must make the pointies strong, yes we must. Here will be the key, then we will have shiny, strong, beautiful pointies and then…"

A scroll right beside Naruto's ear was pulled through to the other side, causing him to turn and come eye to eye with the mystery mumbler. Naruto yelped and jumped back, hearing a similar cry from the other aisle. A few minutes later and the blonde was face to face with the mumbler, identified as a girl a year his elder named Tenten. Both were heavily embarrassed, Naruto for eavesdropping and Tenten at being overheard. "I just get a little… obsessive," she was explaining, "my family runs the blacksmith's and weapons shop on Nidaime Street. They joke that it's in my blood, but I've been fasciated with weapons my whole life and when I start thinking about it sometimes I kind of just drift off. I've been caught practicing with so much of my father's merchandise that they've been hiring tutors for me for years now and let me practice with all of the weapons in the shop. Now, though, I want to make my own weapons but it hasn't been going well, I was looking for material on smithing techniques to supplement what my father can teach me in his spare time when you overheard me." She looked at Naruto rather expectantly then, as if awaiting his judgement, it kind of freaked him out a little bit as she just kept staring and staring and staring…

"Cool," he said with a grin, anything to keep the girl happy, and he was relieved when she finally blinked and let out a sigh, had she been holding her breath? "I'm here mostly to try and find stuff to work with my bloodline."

"Oh," she seemed appeased by his declaration before looking confused, "What kind of bloodline needs to be supplemented with metallurgy techniques?"

Naruto grinned as he wordlessly created an iron kunai in his right hand, whilst his left reformed itself into a cartoonish-looking drill. "Metaruton Bloodline, of course," he announced with a grin.

Tenten Higurashi, at the tender age of thirteen, experienced her first, very minor, orgasm.

Tenten, now slightly flushed, tried to draw attention away from her 'predicament' by asking Naruto what sort of thing he was after. "Hmm," he hummed in thought before replying, "Well I do want to improve the quality of the alloys I make, but I also want to look into more technological stuff and find if there's any metals I can make that don't conduct electricity."

"Uhh…" Tenten paused for thought a minute, one hand on her chin, "Well, there's probably an old scroll or book around here somewhere that lists different metal alloys, I'll ask my dad when I get home about it if you like. Uh, we're probably in the wrong place for electronics manuals, though. Oh, but the last I could help with, I think. All metals conduct electricity but stuff like titanium is quite bad at it, I've heard it called a 'poor conductor' before. Others would be things like caesium but they tend to explode and stuff if you get them wet…"

"Wait, sorry, there's a metal that _explodes_ when it gets wet?" Naruto asked, a rather disturbing glint in his eye.

"Um… Yes?" Tenten felt the desire to shudder at the boy's rather mad look. _'Huh, maybe that's what people feel like when I talk about the precious pointies and their beautifully sharp… STOP. Pay attention! Potential ideas of mass destruction are occurring across from you, there is no time to be thinking about the gloriously keen edge of well balanced…'_

An instructor from the Academy had made his way to the rather less explored part of the library when he came across The Brat and the Crazy Weapon-Girl staring off into space with dazed, horrifying grins plastered on their faces. Shuddering with fear, the man turned around and vowed never to bring up that particular memory again.

**Konoha Academy, 4 years later**

This was it. The day they'd all been waiting for. The day they had dedicated the past four years of their lives towards. Today was the day of the Academy Graduation Tests. Everyone had arrived early, prepared to the best of their abilities. Shikamaru Nara, the thin, lazy boy with a black pineapple of a haircut, sat next to Chouji Akimichi, his rotund, cheerful, always-snacking best friend. Kiba Inuzuka, the wild feral-looking boy with brown hair sat conversing quietly with the small white puppy perched on top of his head. Shino Aburame, sat next to him, made no discernible noise, his features hidden behind the high collar of his coat and ever-present sunglasses. Sasuke Uchiha sat off to one side, his dark hair and features causing many of the girls present to sigh at his cool attitude and bishounen looks. At the back a timid girl with very dark blue-tinted hair and pale lavender eyes scanned the room, looking out for the one person she admired above all others and slightly panicked that she couldn't see him. The door suddenly flew open and two girls, both self-proclaimed as Sasuke Uchiha's one true love, erupted into the classroom and began arguing. Both had long hair, though one was pink-headed, the other blonde, one preferred red and black tones to her clothes, the other was a vision in purple, one had a rather large forehead, the other an obsession with talking and gossip. They were Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka respectively and they were making enough of a racket to drown out the approach of the final star of this rather mis-matched batch of ninja hopefuls.

Iruka Umino, teacher of the class, sighed as the all-too familiar scene played out in front of him. It was time to begin the tests and, to his dismay, his favourite pupil hadn't turned up. He felt really bad for the blonde, but he couldn't show favouritism on the day of the tests, and so resigning himself, he drew breath and gathered chakra to perform the one technique he knew would restore order to the manic classroom.

That was when the window exploded.

A roar filled the classroom that drowned out even the arguments of the 'Sasuke Fan-Club' as a large projectile shot into the room, slowing down and unfolding itself to reveal the missing blonde knucklehead himself. Naruto Uzumaki had grown vastly in accomplishment, if not much physically, in the four years since beginning at the Academy and could never resist showing it off. He'd devoured every book he could find that could help him with his bloodline and the results pretty much spoke for themselves. He had, through association with Tenten, been given instruction and odd-jobs around the Higurashi weapon shop and blacksmiths in exchange for supplying the family with high-quality iron and various alloys (except steel, he still couldn't make steel). He'd also developed a damn good working knowledge of modern electronics but had hit a snag. Not something he couldn't understand, but rather the end of the metaphorical highway. Technology had only advanced so far and, it turned out, not very far at all for his purposes, what did he want to learn about plastic moulding or other crap for? All he wanted to know was how he could use metals in new and exciting and, above all, cool ways! That was when he had been introduced to the art of sealing. As it turned out he was absolutely terrible at sealing. Most ones took him months to get right and even longer to memorise. The only ones he used, or in fact could use, were storage, explosive and conversion at the moment. That was enough for him, anyway, as they suited his purposes and didn't involve metric-fucktonnes of theory to understand or create. One stored objects by converting them into energy, one blew stuff up by expelling large amounts of fire chakra and the other changed the nature of his chakra to another type. Just those had taken him two _years_ to get right!

However, whilst his extra-curricular learning had soared to new and exciting heights, his Academy lessons had not gone so well. He had no hope whatsoever of understanding, not to mention using, genjutsu. His ninjutsu, whilst impressive thanks to his bloodline abilities, did not encompass the standard Academy three. His Henge was entirely metallic and made him look like a strange moving statue of whoever he was trying to look like, his Kawarimi was a joke, it only worked on metal objects and even then simply pulled whatever it was and himself together at high speeds. Finally his Bushin turned out exactly like his Henge, leaving him surrounded by walking metallic statues of himself. To top it all off his Taijutsu was so terrible it was hard to believe, owing to the fact that no-one could practice with him without turning their bones to mush and the teachers accused him of 'cheating', refusing to teach him any forms or correct him when he went wrong.

All in all, you'd think he'd be dreading the day of the final exams, but no. Naruto was an optimist. What's more, he had a plan. Hence why he was now, at this very moment, stood in front of the entire class atop his, self-proclaimed, greatest creation to date, covered from head to toe in silver paint.

"NARUTO! YOU BROKE ANOTHER WINDOW!" Yelled Iruka, using chakra to make himself heard over the din Naruto was creating. "GET OFF THAT STUPID FLYING THING RIGHT NOW!"

Shutting off the chakra flow to his creation and withdrawing it's purely metal form back into his body, he alighted on the classroom floor with a heavy _thunk_. "Iruka-sensei, my Musasabi (Giant Flying Squirrel) isn't stupid! It has wind seals and fire seals and it's streamlined and all sorts of…" His diatribe on the virtues of his latest, greatest creation, however was cut short by Iruka's infamous Big Head Jutsu.

"SIT **DOWN!**"

Silence reigned in the classroom as everybody became the picture perfect student. Naruto had, in shock and fear, accidentally sat down on the floor where he had been standing for a second before he remembered himself and found a seat next to Sakura, who promptly ignored him in favour of staring sidelong at Sasuke on her other side.

"Now that everything's settled, your final exam will begin shortly," Iruka's teaching assistant, Mizuki, began handing out papers as he talked, "you have two hours… Begin!"

**Two Hours Later**

"Pencils down everyone! Please follow Mizuki-sensei outside for your taijutsu examination." Iruka announced as he began collecting answer papers. Once everyone had left he checked on Naruto's paper and sighed. The boy had done well, very well on all of the technical questions, but had failed to break the minor genjutsu everybody had had placed on their papers, hiding the final questions.

Meanwhile, outside Naruto was having a bad time of it. He couldn't turn off his bloodline, that thing was pretty much instinctive, but if he was hit and it activated he would be failed for 'cheating' and injuring his opponent, likewise he couldn't use any strikes such as punches, kicks or anything of the sort. Hence why he was dodging like a maniac from the blows of the wild brawler that was Kiba Inuzuka. How in all the hells there were was he supposed to put on any sort of showing that would let him pass without overtly using his bloodline? Ducking under a wild haymaker that would have certainly broken Kiba's arm and liquified his hand had it connected, Naruto's brain suddenly clicked. Diving forward, Naruto threw his entire weight into Kiba's gut, severely winding the boy and throwing them both to the ground. Rolling so that he didn't crush Kiba, Naruto grabbed the boy's arm and twisted himself into the position for an arm-bar. Unfortunately, due to his unwillingness to crush Kiba's ribcage with his considerable weight, Naruto gave the boy enough room to roll out of the dangerous submission position. Seeing his chance at a win escaping fast, Naruto changed tactics and instead yanked Kiba's body towards him whilst the boy was still in an awkward crouch. Naruto brought his legs up into Kiba's stomach and guided the boys stumble as Naruto rolled backwards. Finally reaching a decent angle, Naruto released Kiba's arm and launched the boy out of the practice ring using his legs.

"Ring out!" Mizuki's voice, as it would have it, rang out, "Winner Naruto Uzumaki! Good dodging skills, but grappling style needs more work, well timed throw though, you pass. Kiba Inuzuka, refinement needed on your Beast Style, you left plenty of openings to exploit, but good form overall and you were unlucky to have lost due to a simple throw, you also pass."

The rest of the fights played out pretty routinely with very few surprises, except for the double-knockout of Ino and Sakura, who were both passed due to them both technically 'winning' by incapacitating their opponents. Mizuki made small note on the side of his paper to have the qualifying rules reexamined.

Pretty soon everyone was back in the classroom awaiting the final portion of their test; the ninjutsu exam. Naruto made doubly sure that his silver paint hadn't run or rubbed off after his fight, it was vital for his plan to succeed! Finally his name was called and he left the room, moving to the adjacent one across the hall. Iruka stood there with Mizuki in the background, clipboard in hand and Naruto's sense of anticipation left him near fit to bursting.

"Alright, Naruto." Iruka began, smiling, "good luck, but first, it appears someone had played a joke on you, lets wash that paint off of you." Saying that he performed a minor water jutsu that left Naruto the cleanest he'd been in weeks. Naruto's shocked and horrified face nearly sent the teacher into a giggling fit. He was left standing in his usual outfit of orange cargo pants, black teeshirt, orange jacket and burnished-bronze over-cloak, with a pair of metallic goggles glinting through the mess of wet blonde hair on his forehead, surrounded by a pool of silver paint and water.

"IRUKA-SENSEI! What was that for?" Naruto yelled.

"Naruto, it's obvious you were up to something with that paint," Iruka explained to the outraged boy, sternly, "Did you honestly think I was going to let you just get away with it? Or pass you on some kind of technicality? This is serious business. You are about to become a ninja, for Kami's sake, but I can't let you pass if you aren't ready!"

"But I am ready, sensei!" Naruto griped.

"Alright then, show us. Mizuki what is Naruto's assigned jutsu?" Iruka countered.

Mizuki, grinning over the exchange, looked down at his sheet and announced; "Bushin no Jutsu."

Naruto sighed and formed the necessary hand seals. Putting as much effort into it as he could, he announced, "Metaru Bushin no Jutsu!" What emerged , having flowed out from points on both of Naruto's shoulders, was a pair of clones. Well they were the right shape, and they were more or less the right colours too it was just… they shone. It looked like someone had taken a pair of statues and painted them with metallic versions of their true colours. The effect was… disturbing to say the least, especially when they smiled sheepishly.

"Naruto, you fail!" Iruka announced.

"AW! Sensei!" Naruto and his clones protested in eerie unison.

"Aw nothing, Naruto. The whole point of a clone is to confuse and distract your opponent, allowing you to hide from their attacks, these…" he swept a dramatic hand over Naruto's clones, "things could never pass for you anywhere outside a dark room!"

"Iruka-kun," Mizuki spoke up from the back of the classroom, "it doesn't specify anywhere in the exam guidelines what type of clone is needed and this is an impressive technique to say the least. After all, you did pass the Aburame boy with his bug-clone."

"Yes, I know Mizuki, but the fact remains that Shino-kun could at least weave a decent illusion over his bugs to make them look like him. These wouldn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny!" Iruka countered.

"But these are better than a bug-clone or an illusion, Iruka-sensei!" Naruto yelled, "Look, they can actually fight and touch stuff unlike an illusion and don't break up on contact like bugs!" To demonstrate, Naruto slugged one of his clones in the face, causing it to stagger back and fall through a wall, leaving a flailing-Naruto-shaped hole in it, whilst the other picked up a wooden chair from a stack at the back of the room and smashed it over the original's back. "See!" He exclaimed.

Iruka seemed to ponder things for a moment, mentally weighing up the pros and cons before giving his verdict. "Alright, I'll let you pass on two conditions. First, you fix the damage you just caused, and second you come back to the Academy once every week to work on your genjutsu training."

"What? No way, that's so unfair!" Naruto shouted.

"Do you want to pass or not?" Iruka shot back.

"Fine," Naruto grumbled, "But you have to teach me something cool as well."

"We'll work something out," Iruka replied before handing Naruto a headband. Mizuki smiled at Naruto as he left, but it looked kind of off to the boy. Ah well, he didn't care, he was a ninja now! When Naruto left, Iruka turned to his fellow instructor and asked, "Mizuki, are you okay? You're pencil seems to have broken.


	3. A Team Assigned

Naruto returned home that evening in the highest of high spirits. He was a ninja! Sure Sakura had rejected his proposal of a date once again, but that didn't matter, he'd win her heart eventually once he beat the teme's a.k.a. Sasuke Uchiha's ass. He grinned as he approached his apartment building. Iruka had yelled at him again as he'd left the Academy; _"NARUTO! YOU BROKE ANOTHER WINDOW! WHY CAN'T YOU USE THE DAMN DOOR?"_ but nothing could get him down today, nothing. That ominous cloud of smoke drifting about where he knew his building to be, however, was putting up a damn good effort.

Breaking into a run, Naruto leapt onto the roof of the building in front of him and raced across to the other side to get a good look at his building. Correction, the majority of his building. He'd lost the sixth floor, _again_! "Shit!" He cursed, jumping down to ground level and approaching the breaking stride, he walked up to and then through them, the metal flowing around and through him as though it wasn't there. Walking up the path to his front door, he ran his hands along the line of metal statues lining the path, emitting a small flow of chakra to recharge their internal power cores. Each was a metal clone under a transformation and they acted as guards for his building, he felt it would be a bit creepy to walk past a dozen copies of himself every time he entered and left the building, not to mention conceited. Instead each was under the guise of a famous Konoha ninja or one of his precious people. All the Hokages, including his hero the Yondaime and his oji-san the Sandaime were there, including the Shodaime's joint founder of Konoha, Uchiha Madara, the legendary Sannin Jiraiya and Tsunade, Orochimaru was once there but his oji-san had asked Naruto to remove him one day. Iruka-sensei was there as well, along with the owners of his favourite eatery, Ichiraku Ramen's very own Teuchi and Ayame were represented too. His Sakura-chan was one of the last two, along with Tenten-chan, who seemed to be glaring across at the other girl for some reason. Naruto twitched a bit when the Ayame-statue winked at him and struck a semi-seductive pose, sometimes his clones acted a bit weird when they hung around too long and these statues were the longest running yet. He should probably absorb and remake them, but he was morbidly curious as to what would happen if they were left to continue… growing?… learning?… developing?… whatever it was that made them act differently. Still, they kept to their purpose, protecting the building from intruders.

Opening the bronze double doors, Naruto immediately took to the stairs and shot up to the sixth floor, well he went to the fifth floor and then emerged onto his new roof. The sixth floor was where he usually attempted his more dangerous projects. New weapons, jutsu ideas, explosive tags, dodgy chemicals, all were housed or attempted on the sixth floor, which he routinely rebuilt on what felt like a weekly basis, though this was by far the worst damage it had ever suffered. He'd learned from experience not to keep anything of value lying around up there and, for the same reason kept the fifth floor empty, just in case. Looking around he soon found what seemed to be the source of the smouldering ruin that was the top of his building. The place where the storage room once was was now a blackened hole, opening into the room below, now if only he could figure out why… what was he working on currently? Dart gun? Epic if true, but unlikely… Superconductor attempts? Nah, that was mostly lead and mercury alloys and things… Oh yeah, the potassium bombs but how?… Looking around Naruto did a quick mental blueprint of the floor's usual set-up. Nothing… hmm… he'd figure it out later. Stretching his back and giving hands a quick shake out to loosen them up, he began moulding his chakra, the routine blueprints already coming to mind as he prepared his technique to rebuild the sixth floor and the roof. That was when he almost smacked himself in the head, the roof, the water tower, directly over the storage room. The old thing had somehow managed to survive all previous accidents and he'd never given it any thought. It had obviously sprung a leak of some kind in one of the pipes and set off the bombs in the storage room.

Shaking his head, in silent self-recrimination, Naruto mentally adjusted his image of the roof so that the tower stood on the other side of the roof. Finally ready he released his chakra, keeping the image firmly in his mind. Liquid metal flowed out from his feet, coating, smoothing and adjusting the debris-strewn floor returning it to the state it had been in that morning when he had left, sealing over the hole to the rooms below. Next the walls, internal and external flowed up from the liquid metal surface, the roof taking shape overhead as they were completed. If anyone were looking at the building from outside they would see the roof-surface regrowing all of it's former features such the air conditioning stack, service hatch, access doorway and finally, the water tower, all in shiny new coatings, casting bright reflections from the setting sun.

Inside, Naruto opened his eyes as the procedure completed itself. Swaying slightly from the dizzying drop in his energy levels, he collapsed backwards onto the floor. Holding his head and groaning, he sat up and looked around. Everything was as it had been that morning. Good, now if only there was a way to stop this happening in the future… His thoughts turned back to his guardian statues out front. '_Too much effort,' _he thought, _'plus they're too big and clumsy to work on the delicate stuff. Maybe if I made some smaller ones…'_ An image of hundreds of tiny little tin-hims running around the building, managing everything, continuing with his experiments and jutsu ideas popped into his head. He grinned, a very worrying grin to any who knew him well.

That night an alarm went up in the Hokage office, but was quickly handled by the man himself and his four ANBU bodyguards. Naruto heard nothing of it, being busy dealing with a thousand little 'hims' demanding he make them some metal ramen. He complied, it was either that or have them eat all the copper wiring in every house in Konoha.

**One week later**

It was the day of the team assignments and Naruto, for once, was early. He'd been considerably less rushed this past week and it left him in such a good mood he was almost constantly smiling. Normally all his ideas and projects and self-taught lessons left him with almost no time whatsoever for any of the other things in his life such as eating, sleeping, asking Sakura-chan out, working with Ten-chan at one of their forges, visiting oji-san or doing his academy homework. Now, though, the little Ari (Ant) as he'd taken to calling his new creations made things so much easier and allowed him so much more free time he didn't know what to do with himself. They did all the work he asked them to do and, so long as he reminded them to keep taking notes every once in a while, effectively removed his self-imposed workload. He'd spent the week lazing about, well when he hadn't been getting his ninja ID forms sorted out. Then that had led to meeting his oji-san's grandson, Konohamaru, and his trainer Ebi-something. That had led to Konohamaru following him about under the most _bizarre_ of circumstances. Avoiding the little limpet-come-ninja-in-training had been surprisingly difficult, but had led him to creating a new jutsu. After falling into the river and sinking due to never having been taught how to swim, Naruto had somewhat instinctively sent a hollow aluminium tube out of his mouth, around the back of his neck and straight up to the surface, allowing himself to breathe. Eventually he'd gotten bored with wandering around on the scummy riverbed and created his Musasabi to fly him out of there.

Now he was sat, waiting calmly (for him) playing with a strange pair of devices one of the scrolls he'd found called 'gyroscopes'. The things just span around, perfectly upright, seemingly without support and when he picked one up it was exceedingly difficult to turn the thing around. He'd been powering the things with chakra ever since he'd made them and so long as he did so they just kept going, he'd found they got harder to manipulate the faster they were going. It was an amazing, monumentally interesting discovery. Now if only he could find a _use_ for the damned things! Maybe if he could make one spinning inside him people wouldn't be able to throw him or grapple him easily, but then he'd have to figure out how the hell all his guts went together so as to not mess them up, plus how the hell would he ever bend over? He could put one on his Musasabi and power it for when he wanted it stable… Damn, he'd gotten distracted and Iruka-sensei was calling out team names already! Glancing around, he wondered where Mizuki-sensei was. Bah, distracted again, Iruka was halfway through the teams!

"… are now Team 6, your sensei is Tanaka Inuzuka. Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno and Naruto Uzumaki, you three are now Team 7, your sensei is Kakashi Hatake. Shino Aburame…" Iruka intoned, monotonously from his position at the front of the classroom. Naruto shouted for joy, he knew that it could only be fate that had put him and his beloved Sakura-chan on the same team. Sasuke-teme was a minor problem, but he'd just have to kick his ass a few times to show them both who was the boss, dattebayo! Eventually Iruka got to the end of his list and finished his speech, by which time the senseis had begun to arrive. Slowly but steadily the sensei for each team came forward to collect the rookie ninja, until only team 7 remained.

**Three hours later**

Team seven were still in the classroom. Iruka had abandoned them to their own devices hours ago and so they sat, alone and only themselves for company. Naruto had taken the ample opportunity to once again ask Sakura out. She had, having discovered over the years that punches did nothing, grabbed his head and shoved it through a desk, before turning and proceeding to ask Sasuke out, Said boy merely 'hmmf'ed in response and resigned himself to the next untold hours of torture as he waited for his tardy sensei. That was when Naruto began setting up his 'equipment', consisting of a chakra powered electric motor, several wires and a few gyroscopes produced using his Metaru Sozo technique. He then began producing small samples of alloys and hooking them up to the electric motor using the wires. The gyros he just set to spinning for the hell of it. That was the scene that greeted Kakashi Hatake when he poked his head around the doorframe, Naruto sat tinkering with bits of wire and metal, Sasuke staring out of the window at something he no doubt despised from the expression on his face and Sakura staring at Sasuke as though he had just fallen to earth from the heavens.

"My first impression of you guys is…" he announced from the doorway, shocking all three of the out of their various own little worlds, "You're boring. Meet me on the roof."

Sasuke and Sakura immediately followed the man out the door. Naruto, after quickly reabsorbing all of his things when everyone had left, leapt out the window and called forth his Musasabi. Needless to say he beat them up there, much to their shock, confusion, and anger when they arrived a few seconds later. Kakashi, on the other hand, asked to see his flying ironing board. After yelling at his new sensei for mocking his invention, Naruto handed it over for the jounin to inspect. A few minutes later, Kakashi stuck his head up from the device and began discussing it with Naruto, totally ignoring the other two, much to their continued shock, confusion and anger.

"Fire and wind seals for propulsion?" Kakashi asked, looking over the bottom of the board.

"Yep, a set underneath each footrest. Naruto announced, proudly.

"Why not just wind?"

"Fire increases the speed, plus it looks cooler."

"What about stability?"

"I'm thinking of putting a gyroscope or two in the centre to help with that, but it's alright without them."

Kakashi merely nodded in thought.

"I take it this is the only one of its kind?"

"Eh?"

"Did you ever make others?"

"I make more all the time!"

Kakashi looked at the blonde in confusion. "What do you do with them all?"

"Oh, I reabsorb them when I don't need them and then remake a new one from scratch whenever I want to use it."

At this Kakashi's jaw dropped, visible even through his mask. Naruto, calmly focused, hopped slightly and all of a sudden he was stood on an identical copy of the Musasabi, hovering about an inch above the ground on a cushion of wind chakra. He then deactivated it, hopped off and with a quick flick of his ankle stood holding the board upright.

"So," Kakashi stated whilst the other two looked on at the 'dobe' of the class, "the rumours of the Metaruton Academy student were accurate. What was the part you said about reabsorbing things?"

Naruto blushed slightly and scratched the back of his head. "Erm… I can sort of 'eat' metal stuff," he admitted, "but it's kinda… well I've never done it in front of anybody before."

Kakashi nodded in understanding and didn't press the issue and instead turned to the other two genin standing off to the side. "Mah, so you guys finally made it up here then? It's not nice to keep people waiting you know."

The two nearly erupted in rage before he waved their protests down and instead asked them all to introduce themselves. Sakura turned his question back on him, in what she thought was a clever deception to learn more about their new sensei, asking him to go first and introduce himself. Kakashi responded with a surprised; "I thought you were one of the smartest of your year," which had the added bonus of embarrassing the girl, "Well, about me… My name is Kakashi Hatake, my likes… aren't really your business, neither are my dislikes… hobbies, I have plenty of those… dreams for the future… I haven't really thought about it. Okay pinky, your turn!"

Resisting the urge to attack a jounin and possibly end up in the hospital, or worse taken off of her Sasuke-kun's team, Sakura described herself; "Well, my name's Sakura Haruno, I like…" she couldn't bring herself to admit it as she stared at her crush, a blush forming on her face, "my hobbies are…" again, it was too embarrassing to admit, "and my dreams…" no it was too much, she squealed as the thought entered her mind.

"What about your dislikes?" Kakashi asked.

"NARUTO-BAKA!" She shouted, firmly, causing both the blonde in question and their teacher to sweat-drop.

"Okay, small, dark and broody, your turn." Kakashi said, pointing to the black-haired bishounen.

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. I have few likes and many dislikes. I have no hobbies. My dream for the future, is more of an ambition really… to kill a certain man and to revitalise my clan."

"Well aren't you a bubbly ball of sunshine? Okay blondie, you go."

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki, future Hokage, dattebayo! I like ramen and training and metal and Sakura-chan and Ten-chan and Hokage-oji-san and Ayame-nee-chan and Teuchi-oji-san. I dislike emos, stupid old men, stupid villagers and people who don't work for what they have. My hobbies are training, comparing different types of ramen, figuring out electronic stuff and working with Ten-chan at our forges. My dream is a prediction; I'm gonna be the Hokage and take that hat right off oji-san's head, dattebayo!"

"Well, that was… interesting… Okay, meet me at training ground seven tomorrow for your genin test." Kakashi announced, preparing to leave, before Sakura spoke up.

"Ne, Kakashi-sensei, we've already taken our genin exam!" She exclaimed in confusion.

"Huh? Oh that, that was just to see if you had learned anything worthwhile at the Academy. The real test has a ⅔ failure rate and is to test to see if you actually have the aptitude to become genin or if you need to go back to the academy for another year. So anyway, eight o'clock tomorrow, training ground seven. Oh, and don't eat breakfast. You'll just throw up. Ciao!" With that, the man disappeared in a swirl of leaves, leaving the three confused ninja alone on the roof. Sasuke simply 'hnn'ed and walked off, planning to train. Sakura was next, looking around for her dark-haired true love, realising he'd left without him and then followed, hoping to get him to agree to a date. Naruto was the last to assimilate the news and, after the appropriate (for him) burst of outrage, turned to find himself abandoned on the roof. _'When did that happen?'_ he thought before shrugging, _'I wonder if Ten-chan is back from her mission yet?'_ Saying that, he grabbed his Musasabi, Kakashi having taken the other one, and set off towards the Higurashi family store.

He quickly found the bun-haired girl, having been given her mandatory week off after completion of her team's C-rank mission. When he approached her, she was working at a grindstone in her back garden, behind the smelter, putting a keener edge on one of her many kunai. Approaching stealthily, he hugged her from behind before she even realised he was there, lost as she was in her own world of sharp, pointy, goodness. Reacting as she had been trained, Tenten span in her assailant's loose grip and, still seated, drove the kunai into the first available weak spot. Naruto had the rather unpleasant sensation of a kunai scraping it's tip across his eyeball, his bloodline activating as it always did. "Ohayo, Ten-chan!" he exclaimed as she realised who she had just tried to impale.

"Naruto-kun!" she yelled, slapping him lightly so as not to hurt herself, "How many times have I told you not to do that! I might seriously hurt you one day!" She punctuated each word with another slap to the laughing blonde.

"Mah, mah, don't worry, it's okay, besides it wouldn't be the same if you weren't trying to stab me for something, would it Ten-chan?" he asked, jokingly as he stood up.

Tenten slapped him again, a bit harder this time, "Stop calling me that!" she yelled, before grinning at the short knucklehead, "Baka, can't even get my name right. Do I mean so little to you after all these years?" She finished with a mock pout.

Naruto just grinned at her antics. Dusting himself off, he suddenly remembered something. "Oh, yeah, Ten-chan! Whilst you were away I came up with a new jutsu! Want to see?"

Tenten just grinned and nodded, preparing herself for the next wonderful metal jutsu her cuddly blonde toy-bo… friend… nice blonde, not-attractive-in-any-way-for-his-ability-to-manipulate-the-lovely-shiny-metal-goodness, friend had come up with. Said blonde focused, a cute… no, bad thoughts, must behave, endearing, yes that was much more appropriate, expression on his face. All of a sudden he was once more covered in that beautiful metal skin before it flowed out, much the same way his clone jutsu looked, except this time forming a dozen foot-tall versions of their metallic creator. His jutsu finished, Naruto looked down at his new creations before barking some orders; "Alright you lot, half of you tidy up the shop out front, the rest get to work in the forge around the side. From now on you all answer to Ten-chan here and her family. Clear?" Receiving squeaky affirmatives or nods of tiny heads, he sent the mini-hims off. One, however remained behind as Tenten had grabbed it from where it stood and was looking it over.

Damn the boy. Damn his sexy metal bloodline. Damn the fact that he still wasn't a fully emancipated genin yet. Damn those pesky child molestation laws. Double damn his naivety. Triple damn that pink-haired whore that had captured his attention years before she had ever met him. Quadruple damn her father, watching them like some vengeful hawk from the back door of the house.

Jintachi 'Jin' Higurashi looked out at his daughter and her friend with a carefully controlled look of warning he had perfected over the last four years. Ever since she had come home from an Academy trip one day and asked him about a funny-nice feeling she'd had in her private parts. He knew, deep down, that there wasn't anything he could do about it once he'd gotten all of the facts straight. Everyone has their own little turn-ons, it just so happened that his daughter's had turned out to be very definite and very pronounced. Some liked to role-play, others enjoyed small amounts of pain, his precious princess just happened to find sharp, pointy metallic things highly arousing. Then she'd met a boy who could produce as much sharp, metal, pointy stuff as she wanted and could even become sharp, metal and pointy himself. That had been the start of his uphill battle against her descent down a slippery slope. He'd tried to explain to her that it was natural but would not be right to pursue for a few years yet, she'd responded with ideas of 'training' and 'conditioning' the boy in question. He'd tried to bring her back to reality by explaining about the wrongness of 'grooming' to her. That had just given her more ideas. So far the best he could do, aside from futilely trying to drive the amazingly loyal boy away or outright banning her from seeing him, was to keep watch of her around him as much as he could and hopefully prevent anything overly wrong or illegal from occurring. Damn the ninja emancipation laws! Damn bloodline ninja! Double damn naive and impressionable blonde ninja who could get his princess sent to jail and/or hell!

Jin was severely fighting the temptation to smash his head repeatedly into the doorframe. He would strangle the little idiot. He'd just given his daughter a dozen small metallic copies of himself. As if keeping his daughter's behaviour in check wasn't hard enough with just one of the idiot running around!

Tenten shifted her gaze back to Naruto and grinned. "These are fantastic, Naruto-kun. I can't think how to repay such a wonderful gift." She declared, trying to keep her face neutral and her voice low so that she wouldn't be interrupted by her father.

"Mah, mah, it's no big deal Ten-chan. All it costs is a bit of chakra and it's worth it to help you and your family out. They've been really helpful to me over the past week."

"Really? Tell me, are they all anatomically co…" she began before a shout from the house drew the blonde's attention.

"NARUTO!" Jin yelled, making his way towards the two. "How've you been? Got some new shipments in and I could use your help purifying them!"

_'GRAH! Burn in hell old man!'_ Tenten mentally seethed as her father took away Naruto's attention.

**Hokage Tower**

Meanwhile, unaware of his newest student's problems with obsessive females, Kakashi Hatake was taking his newest acquisition to the Hokage for analysis and advice. He'd managed to get away with 'borrowing' Naruto's flying surf board thing as the blonde had been both uncaring and distracted. He'd then made a trip to where he'd been told the boy's apartment building was. Scaling the fence was the first issue he came to as there was no discernible gate. Merely touching the iron bars had been enough to send a bolt of electricity shooting through his system and his hand was still twitching from the experience. One chakra powered leap later and he was thanking every god he knew that he had taken the kid's flying surfboard as the tops of the fence surged upwards to match his jump. Fortunately they could only extend so far and, with a bit of trial and error and guided mostly by instinct than conscious will, Kakashi managed to pilot Naruto's invention over the barrier after using it to halt his jump. Touching down on the roof of Naruto's building, he saw what he'd assumed to be the statues lining Naruto's garden path suddenly come to life and start marching into the building. Preparing for the worst, he was very much surprised when, instead of a dozen life-sized opponents arriving, he was confronted by a horde of tiny versions of Naruto himself. They didn't speak but Kakashi was not optimistic enough to think they were here to take his coat and offer refreshments. The glowing orange eyes were incredibly off-putting. Still, he wasn't an elite Jounin for nothing and he managed to avoid the swarm by entering the building through an open window two floors down. A quick search of the building later, mostly spent avoiding searching statues and tiny robots, and Kakashi had what he came for.

Entering the Hokage's office, Kakashi placed the 'Musasabi' down on the man's desk along with an impressive stack of notebooks, copied using a rarely taught administrative jutsu. Not all ninja techniques were combat oriented and Kakashi had been a bit anxious to get to the magic number of 1000 copied jutsu. The Hokage looked up questioningly at the jounin after a brief inspection of the items.

"This was not included in the report, Hokage-sama." Kakashi stated.

"Would you care to elaborate, Kakashi-kun? What report are these… objects supposed to be in?" The Hokage asked clearly confused.

"When I was assigned genin Naruto Uzumaki, I was told he was the bottom of his class. An idiot, dobe, barely passable as a ninja who was as loud, hyperactive and _orange_ as they could possibly come. Appalling taijutsu, barely passable ninjutsu and non-existent genjutsu skills, his only redeeming feature; a new and potentially powerful bloodline. Useful as breeding stock, should the council gain hold of him but nothing else. Then when I first meet him, instead of running around like a mad headless chicken as I had thought to expect, he is sitting performing an experiment with some electrical equipment. The next thing I know, he's pulled this," Kakashi indicated the Musasabi, "out of seemingly nowhere and is using it to fly around." Flipping it over, Kakashi shows the underside and the inlaid seals displayed. "These are modified chakra converters, and I don't mean the standard seals with a few minor tweaks or deviations, these things have been stripped down, dissected and rebuilt fit to purpose in ways I can only even begin to comprehend and when asked about it Naruto just dismisses it casually without any signs of hidden emotion. Then he reveals, under no compulsion that he can mass produce the things almost flippantly and didn't even care that I'd taken this one, he just made another. Immediately suspicious, I took a gamble and attempted entry into his apartment after dismissing the team for the evening. His defences around that place are extensive and extreme to say the least, it took me a full hour before I could obtain the information I was looking for and report to you." Now he indicated the books he'd stacked on the table. "These books contain copies of data from Naruto's various experiments with seals, jutsu and his own bloodline and never before have I seen such in-depth theory and experimentation from one so young. The boy has apparently only learned seven seals, storage, explosive and the five chakra conversions, however that would be akin to saying I have only heard of a thousand jutsu in passing, he has studied each seal so minutely that I doubt there is anything the boy doesn't know about them, there's things in here that even I can't make head nor tails of. Then there comes his scientific breakthroughs, the boy has apparently decided that he is to know everything it is possible to know about every single metal that exists and is currently attempting to make the world's first room-temperature superconductor, as far as I can tell, purely so that he can mass produce radio sets with his bloodline. This one here," Kakashi lifted a book out of the middle of the stack, "details various weapons he's experimented with, including a new pulley-system based bow, a wind-chakra-powered dart gun, and various, what he calls 'water-bombs'. Then we come to jutsu, and this is where things really take off. The boy has single-handedly recreated the base component for nearly every earth or water based jutsu I know using his bloodline as the base instead of the elements in question, all he lacks is the push in the right direction, maybe a bit of guidance here and there and he'd have them all recreated as metarujutsu, probably in the space of five minutes."

"'The boy has somehow managed to fool, not just his fellow students, but his instructors over the past four years into thinking him an incompetent weakling and clearly fudged his test scores perfectly to get himself placed on a team with the Haruno and the Uchiha. He betrays nothing of himself except the front of a knuckle headed prankster, yet clearly has skills so far out of his perceived reach that it hurts my brain to think about it. When questioned he comes across perfectly as some kind of idiot scant who has 'happened' to have just come across these discoveries and concepts."

Kakashi looked at the old man straight in the eye, before asking; "Hokage-sama, why has a special jounin of the science division been masquerading as an Academy student and for what reason is he being assigned to my team?


	4. A Test Taken

Naruto was getting severely annoyed. To start with someone had broken into his home when he had been out with Ten-chan, somehow bypassing his fence, the dozen statue guards _and_ the hundreds of Ari clones he'd left behind. He couldn't do anything about it however, as none of the statue guards had gotten a good look at whoever it was, the Ari, it turned out, weren't intelligent enough to remember a description of the guy and to top it all off he couldn't do any major upgrades or changes to his defences because he had to pass his stupid jounin's test! Said stupid jounin hadn't even turned up yet and he was already two and a half hours late! He wondered if it was illegal to drive a metal spike through a superior's chest cavity. Naruto was sitting with his back to one of the three training posts in training ground seven. Oddly enough his pose and general thought patterns were being mimicked by the other members of his team, leaning up against the other training posts.

*POOF* "Ohayo, mina-san." Whirling around, Naruto saw the object of his team's frustration. Kakashi Hatake, his Konoha forehead protector pulled low over his left eye, silver hair standing up in a giant spike and wearing standard jounin attire was crouched on top of the training post they had all been leaning on. Jumping to their feet, Naruto and Sakura both levelled pointed fingers at the man and declared **"YOU'RE LATE!"** unfortunately Naruto had, in his frustration, been subconsciously releasing small (for him) portions of chakra and this, coupled with his desire to be as loud as he could, led him to inadvertently creating yet another unique jutsu.

Literally blown away and with his ears ringing from the noise, Kakashi poked his head around the side of the training posts to confirm that, yes Nauto had a large conical shape protruding from where his mouth used to be.

"Naruto! What the hell did you do?"

**"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT SAKURA-CHAN? I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING."**

"Baka! Turn off that jutsu before you deafen me or Sasuke-kun!"

**"WHAT JUTSU? I'M NOT USING A JUTSU SAKURA-CHAN."**

Resisting the urge to face-palm, Kakashi went about breaking up what he somehow knew was going to be the first of many arguments to come. After a quick explanation of the rules of his little test and getting Naruto to finally disable his 'Loudspeaker no Jutsu", he set his pre-prepared egg-timer for an hour and told them to begin. Immediately Sasuke and Sakura disappeared into the bushes, Naruto however, decided to stay out and take him on one-on-one… Exactly as Kakashi planned. Immediately Kakashi placed a genjutsu over the area they stood in before confronting the grinning blonde.

"Right, gaki, I just placed a genjutsu over this area, your two 'teammates' are currently watching a rather one-sided match of jounin vs. genin. You and I, on the other hand are going to have a little discussion."

"Ne, Kakashi-sensei, what about the test?" Naruto asked, a confused look spreading across his face.

"Oh, I'm sure you know all about the true purpose of the test. Drop the act, brat! I've figured it out, so tell me, why are you hiding your skills? Or do I need to drag your ass to Ibiki and let the torture and investigation department have it's fun little way with you? I hear the enemas are to _die _for." Kakashi continued to maintain his distance from the boy, hackles raised and caution dictating his every move. An unknown enemy is a dangerous enemy and rich now he was taking nothing about his supposed genin for granted.

"Kakashi-sensei what are you talking about? Is this part of the test too?" Naruto's face betrayed no emotion other than that of confusion, before determination once more took over. "You'll not fool me sensei, I'm getting one of those bells dattebayo!"

So saying, Naruto leapt back, clones already forming from out of his back and his Musasabi flowing into life beneath his feet. He was not prepared for the sudden rush of air and the impact from behind that sent him sprawling to the ground. Quicker than he could think, Naruto's arms and legs had been encased in earthen binds against which he struggled uselessly. Kakashi, stood over him, muttered "Doton: Nentsuchiro no Jutsu, success." (Earth Release: Sticky Earth Prison) Bending down, Kakashi looked Naruto directly in the eye as he spoke; "I know what you have been working on. The Hokage knows all about your little projects. You have been hiding your intelligence and decieving your classmates and tutors alike. Now you will answer my questions and you will do so quickly, or we will be finding out just how much of the ANBU field interrogation procedure manual works on someone with metal skin. First off; Why are you hiding your intelligence?"

"Damn it Kakashi-sensei, let me up! I'm not hiding anything!" Naruto yelled, trying to wiggle free from his face-down spread-eagled position in the dirt.

"Don't fuck with me, gaki! I paid a trip to your little fortress and looked through your notes! No way could someone with the power and knowledge to do what you've done be the dead last at the academy! Now, what are you hiding? Why are you hiding it?"

"You! You're the one who beat my security! Damn it, how the hell am I supposed to keep jounin out? How the hell did you even get in? What are you doing looking through my stuff anyway? I'm gonna kick your ass when I get out of this, teme-sensei!"

Kakashi activated a minor lightning jutsu in his palm and slammed it into the back of Naruto's head. Said blonde lit up like a christmas tree, his metal skin glowing and rapidly heating up the longer Kakashi kept up the technique. Halting the chakra flow, Kakashi glared into the eyes of his, now lightly smoking, student and spoke softly. "Tell me what I want to know. Now."

Naruto glared at the man's single visible eye for a minute before huffing and muttering, "Fine." He then proceeded to tell the man everything. Kakashi was not amused. "You expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth! Now let me up!"

"So, you're not a vengeful angst-ridden little dick with some brains and a superiority complex hiding behind a mask of stupidity? You haven't got any plans for a hostile takeover or the complete destruction of Konoha and it's inhabitants? You genuinely are just a loudmouthed, orange-wearing, fanatically loyal ninja of the leaf with a metal manipulating bloodline, a desire to be Hokage to gain peoples' respect and a fascination with electronics and sealing?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"Bullshit, I'm taking you to a Yamanaka." Kakashi announced. He dropped the genjutsu and informed Sasuke and Sakura that the test was to be put off until the next day. He then formed more hand seals and Naruto was encased up to his neck in a solid ball of rock. "Doton: Doro no jutsu" (Earth Style: Earth Prison) Kakashi announced before rolling the screaming blonde out of the training field and into Konoha proper. Sasuke and Sakura merely looked on in confusion.

**That evening**

It had taken the combined confirmation of three separate mind dives to confirm that Naruto was telling the truth before Kakashi was willing to believe it. Naruto really was just a happy-go-lucky idiot with an inferiority complex due to his treatment by the villagers of Konoha. Kakashi had, rather sheepishly, bought the boy some ramen as an apology. Naruto had quickly forgiven him after that, expressing the belief that anyone who bought him ramen had to be a good guy. Kakashi sighed at that, wondering just how naive the boy could be and how someone so idiotic could be so accomplished.

"So, sensei, what made you think I was really a secret genius or whatever?" Naruto asked around a mouthful of noodles.

Once more fighting an embarrassed look, Kakashi replied, "Mah, mah, Naruto sorry again, but it was your seals on that flying ironing board that made me suspect you."

Frowning, Naruto yelled; "It's a Musasabi, not an ironing board! Baka-sensei, mocking my inventions…" Naruto continued muttering, before once more making one of his infamous mental turnarounds. "Ne, Kakashi-sensei, what's wrong with my seals that made you think I was a traitor?"

Turning serious, Kakashi leaned in closer to Naruto; "I'm not going to lie to you, brat. Those are some of the most refined and intricately manipulated seals I have ever seen. That is seal-master grade work. How'd you get so good at fuuinjutsu?"

"Good? Kakashi-sensei, maybe you need _your_ head looked at, I'm terrible at sealing, it took me six months to figure out how each of those seals worked! It took even longer to find out how to manipulate them all! Remember the mini-hurricanes in the market district last year? Wind seals gone wrong!"

"Naruto, most people either just copy the design or buy their seals from people who have when they want a seal tag. I think the amount of people who actually go out of their way to figure out the workings of a seal don't even make up a hundredth of a percent of the world's ninja." Kakashi laughed, "You've been setting your minimum standard at master-level!"

Now it was Naruto's turn to feel sheepish. He didn't know his standards had been so high. He hastily finished off his bowl of noodles to hide his embarrassment. "So, what was it you were saying about the real purpose behind that test you were giving us?" Naruto asked, his mind suddenly drawn back to the interrogation on the training ground as Kakashi paid their bill, anime tears in the man's eyes when he found out the price.

Kakashi feigned ignorance as they were leaving the ramen stand; "I have no idea what you're talking about, obviously you must be confused from the mental stress of the day. Now, go back to your apartment and get some rest. You'll need to be on top form tomorrow if you want to get a bell."

Naruto had a feeling something wasn't right, but dismissed it in favour of taking his sensei's advice, he was full of ramen and a good night's sleep was exactly what the doctor ordered.

**The next day**

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were once more waiting at training ground seven, waiting for their sensei almost three hours after he had told them to meet him.

"I can't help but feel like we should have expected this." Naruto commented. Sasuke gave a grunting acknowledgement and Sakura couldn't really find anything to say.

Eventually Kakashi did show up, and once once again knocked flat by the powerful combination jutsu of the Uzumaki and the Haruno clans; 'Scream of the Banshee's Protest'. **"YOU'RE LATE!"** Rang across the training ground, Kakashi recovered quickly and explained; "Mah, mah, I was on my way here when a black cat crossed my path and so I had to go the long way around so as not to get bad luck!"

**"LIAR"**

"Anyway," Kakashi announced, "the same rules apply as yesterday. Two bells, two lunches, three genin. Whoever winds up without a bell when the timer goes off ends up back in the Academy and goes hungry watching the others eat."

Before he could start, Sakura spoke up and asked; "Ne, sensei, what happened yesterday? Why did you cancel the test and cart Naruto off?"

"Oh, that," Kakashi said waving a hand dismissively, "I thought Naruto was secretly a genius hiding behind a mask of naivety and ignorance, pretending to hide behind a mask of indifference and was planning to betray and/or get revenge on the village for how they've treated him over the years, so I cancelled the test and took him to have his mind examined by three separate people. Turns out he's actually just a lonely, determined child hiding behind a mask of indifference."

Sasuke turned to stare incredulously at the blonde in question who just grinned and scratched the back of his head. "You had three people poking around your mind yesterday?" he asked Naruto.

"Yeah, it felt a little weird and one of them came out traumatised screaming about giant foxes for some reason. Dunno why, it's not like I think about giant foxes much…" Naruto responded.

"Anyway! Back to the test," Kakashi yelled, he definitely did not want to be the reason behind the leak of _that_ particular village secret, "you have an hour. GO!"

Strangely enough things played out exactly as the genjutsu he'd set up the day before had. Sasuke and Sakura vanished into the bushes, whilst Naruto charged forward to engage in taijutsu. Kakashi, now at more of an ease around the blonde, merely reached into his back pocket, causing Naruto to slow to a cautious halt. Suddenly, and with a sense of drama so refined it was almost possible to hear the epic battle music begin playing in the background, Kakashi withdrew his hand holding… a book?

Naruto stared at the man incredulously as he began reading to himself in the middle of their supposed fight. Kakashi turned a page. "Sensei, what the hell are you doing are we gonna fight or not?" Naruto yelled.

"Hmm?" Kakashi barely even glanced up from the orange covered book in his hand. "Oh this, don't worry. As a genin you won't put up enough of a fight that you'll require my full attention."

Nearly shaking in rage, Naruto abandoned his plans for a frontal assault and instead began forming hand-seals. "Metaru Bushin!" With greater speed than the last time Kakashi had seen the technique, Naruto began spewing forth metallic clones. "Metaru Sozo: Musasabi!" All of the metal clones, about three dozen if Kakashi was any guess, suddenly became flying metal clones. "Metaru Sozo: Yumi!" That had Kakashi widen his eye and take note. All around him was a swarm of metal orange statues wielding the strange bows Kakashi had seen in Naruto's notes and sketchbooks. Those arrows did not look friendly. '_Kyujutsu?'_ Kakashi thought, _'Who the flying fuck still practices archery? And why the hell are they teaching Naruto?'_

On the other side of Konoha, a rather large man had to quickly intervene before his daughter's sneeze ruined the tempering of the sword he had allowed her to work on. Quickly taking over, he sent his princess off to bed, worried she might have caught a cold from her recent mission. She reluctantly moved away from the forges and the man gave strict instructions to the small metal constructs beside him to make sure she did as she was told.

Back with Kakashi, he had been dodging quite frantically for the first time in a while as his body bent to some rather interesting contortions to avoid the volleys of arrows sent his way. _'Doesn't this kid ever run out of arrows?'_ he thought, looking at one in particular that nearly gave him a third nostril, it was shiny and appeared to be fletched with foil. _'Of course not, he makes them as well. Right, long range doesn't seem to work, my kunai are just bouncing off of him. Time to get up close and personal.'_

Naruto's target practice session was cut short when his sensei abruptly shifted and charged at the nearest metal form. "Ninja lesson one!" The silver-haired man announced "Taijutsu!" He then cut a swathe through the clones, before utterly humiliating the blonde in front of his two team-mates watching from the foliage. At least, that was the plan. His fist exploded in pain, even after he'd coated it in chakra to harden the bones and he jumped back to see that it was bleeding heavily. Naruto then gave the man a piece of his own medicine by shouting; "Naruto lesson one! Don't punch anything sharper or pointier than you!" Kakashi looked back at the clone he'd attacked and noted that the side of its face had grown sharp metal spikes, several of which were covered in his blood.

"Okay, maybe I underestimated you." The man replied, forming hand seals faster than Naruto could track, "No longer. Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!" The training field was quickly awash with small metal fireballs, each targeting their own flying statue. "Ninja lesson two! Ninjutsu!" he declared just as the fireballs struck their marks.

"AAARRRGGHHH!" What turned out to be the real Naruto screamed as he was engulfed in fire. "I'M !" Sure enough, in front of a horrified Kakashi, the blonde was slowly liquifying into a hot silvery mess that burned the grass as it touched ground. Morbidly fascinated and almost quaking in fear at what the Hokage was going to do to him for _melting_ his favourite brat, with such a low-powered fire jutsu of all things,, Kakashi watched as Naruto completely vanished into a puddle of molten metal.

Kakashi approached solemnly, all the while thinking, _'I've done it again! I'm not even their sensei yet and I've already gotten one of them killed! Why? WHY?'_ he knelt down next to the rapidly cooling puddle that was once Naruto Uzumaki. Some distant part of his mind dimly registered the sounds of retching from the bushes near their position but he paid it no mind. All his thoughts were on the remains of the boy in front of him. "Naruto," he choked softly, "Naruto, I'm so sorry." He closed his eyes and bent forward in silent prayer and grief. That was when the puddle attacked.

Surging up from the ground, the liquid metal enveloped most of Kakashi's body, immobilising him and solidifying quickly. A blonde head formed out of one side that yelled into the bushes. "Sasuke! Sakura! Get out here and grab a bell off of him before he breaks free!" Wide eyed silence greeted him for half a second before the world once again exploded into motion. Kakashi valiantly struggled against his bonds as Sasuke dived out of the bushes and leapt for the bells at Kakashi's waist.

Once Sasuke had the bells secure he nodded to Naruto who let the man out of his amorphous embrace. Naruto grinned as he reformed, clothes flowing out of where he'd stored them beneath his skin as he did so; "Heh, did _not_ know I could do that. Thanks Kakashi-sensei, you just helped me create a new jutsu."

Kakashi congratulated the two on gaining a bell before informing Naruto; "You are one cruel, heartless, sadistic little bastard when you want to be aren't you? I'm torn between shock, pride and amusement. However you still haven't passed. Only those with a bell when the timer goes off get to eat lunch." The man disappeared in a burst of speed and reappeared holding the bells once more, "And you were so close to passing the test as well, two thirds of the way there… it'll be such a shame to send you all back to the academy. Bye bye." With that he disappeared in a swirl of leaves, two shocked and outraged genin left staring at the spot he'd once occupied.

"Well fuck." Naruto stated. "What the hell are we supposed to do now? And where's Sakura-chan?"

Sasuke turned his head to indicate the bushes where he had been observing Naruto's battle. "She threw up and fainted when she thought Kakashi killed you."

"Oh. Well, I think we should go wake her up." Naruto stated, walking in the direction Sasuke had indicated.

"Why?" The raven-haired boy asked. "All she's done so far is hide, throw up and faint. She's just dead weight that'll hinder us passing the test. Plus, what if she gets lucky and gets a bell in place of one of us?"

"Well, I've used up a good chunk of my chakra already, that melting thing really took a lot out of me. Though, I suppose it could have just been trying to counter the heat of sensei's jutsu, but either way, she at least deserves a chance to prove herself doesn't she? I mean she was top kunoichi of the class, right? I'm sure she'll be awesome!" Naruto could tell that his well-reasoned and logically sound arguments were not making any impression on the other boy. "She could make a decent distraction while you get the bells yourself?" That seemed to work. "Plus think how she'll react when she finds out I'm not dead. She'll be so relieved I'm sure she'd go on a date with me!" Naruto finished as he marched off to find the stricken love of his life.

Sasuke thought about what Naruto had said. Yes Sakura could be annoying, but she was smart in one form or another and she was always distracting him, so it'd be nice to see someone else bear the brunt of that, for a while at least. Then he thought about Sakura's probable reaction to Naruto's unharmed state. A knowing grin threatened to spread across his face, but well honed muscle control prevented it. "Hey, dobe! Wait up!"

"BAKA! YOU MADE ME THINK YOU HAD DIED! I'LL KILL YOU NARUTO! YOU COULD HAVE MENTALLY SCARRED SASUKE-KUN AND ME FOR LIFE!"

Naruto was being strangled by a very irate and awake Sakura, occasionally he'd find his skull would become buried in a tree or the ground, whichever was more convenient at the time, and couldn't help wonder where and why reality had deviated from the obvious path it should have taken. Wake up Sakura, Reveal continued ability to breathe, Comfort worried Sakura, Ask Sakura out on date, Have her accept, Pass genin test without Sasuke-teme, Take Sakura on date, Become awesome ninja, Become Hokage, Marry Sakura, Live forever as world's most awesome ninja. Sasuke-teme laughing in the background did not help.

"It worked didn't it? We got the bells!" Naruto yelled when her grip began to slacken. Sakura then looked in horror from him to Sasuke and back again.

"You mean… I have to go back to the Academy?" She asked in such a quiet voice it was hard for them to hear her at all.

"No, teme-sensei said the rules were we had to have a bell when the timer went off, so he took them off of Sasuke-teme when we were distracted and disappeared after telling us we'd only gotten two thirds of the way through the test." Naruto responded.

Sakura sighed in relief before staring at her crush. "What did he mean by two thirds of the way through?"

The bishounen boy shrugged and Naruto said; "I think it means we'd used up two thirds of the time limit, how long did we have anyway?"

"About an hour." Sasuke responded.

"So we have less than twenty minutes left?" Sakura stated. "That can't be right, how long after I fainted did you get the bells?"

"Dunno, about a minute." Naruto was confused, why were they wasting time talking with so little time left?

"Naruto's fight didn't last more than quarter of an hour and that started right away, so how could we only have a third of the time left?" Sakura asked. "Unless he meant something else, like a clue to passing the tests?"

Sasuke immediately perked up at the idea. "So what did we only have two thirds of when Naruto and I got the bells?"

The bell was almost about to ring when Kakashi saw all three of his genin-hopefuls walk into the clearing around the training posts. His interest was piqued, had they managed to figure out the clue he'd left them? Would they be the first group to pass his test? Fat chance, but anything was possible, still playing around with the Uzumaki kid was kinda fun, the little brat thought in the weirdest ways Kakashi had ever seen, maybe he'd spar with the boy a few times before he got reassigned to a different jounin. Ah, they'd formed up into a sloppy attack formation, the two boys in front, Sakura hanging back to give support. The two in front looked at each other before charging forward, one to either side of him in a poorly timed pincer movement. Kakashi supposed he had the time to teach them something. "Ninja lesson three! Genjutsu!" he cried as the three charging figures stopped in their tracks. He relaxed, walking over to the three when instinct, born from years of dangerous missions, told him to jump. He leapt high, over the wave of arrows that had threatened to pin his legs to the ground but into the path of an oncoming… none of them should have the training and he'd thought only Naruto had the capacity for a Goukakyu. A quick Kawarimi and it was a log that was incinerated by the Grand Fireball Technique instead of Kakashi. That wasn't the end of the fight, however, as Naruto and Sasuke rushed forward to engage him in close quarters. Dodging Naruto's feeble taijutsu style wasn't hard in itself but combined with dodging and blocking the Uchiha's signature taijutsu style, even the basic forms, made it that much harder. He felt himself being pushed back, but refrained from taking the fight to the next level, that was until he felt something behind him. Whipping around, Kakashi had just enough time to spot the Haruno girl about to snatch the bells, he moved to block her but she just dropped the kunai she was holding before all three of the respective genin took a very large leap back.

Kakashi looked around to see the three surrounding him in ready positions in what was a passable triangle formation. He smiled beneath his mask. "Good job, I think you almost had the bells then." He announced before looking back over to the three frozen figures still trapped in his genjutsu. "Bushin?" He asked Sakura, who nodded before releasing her hold on the technique. Instead of completely disappearing, the three figures lost some of the vividness of their colourings and gained a familiar sheen. "Metaru Bushin under a target Henge? Impressive. Unfortunately not impressive enough to get you a bell. Do you want to try again? The timer is almost up."

"Oh, we haven't finished yet, sensei." Naruto announced, drawing Kakashi's attention to him and the fact that the boy was holding his hands in a ram seal. Confused, Kakashi looked towards the final member of the team. The Uchiha just smirked and pointed down. Kakashi looked down to see the kunai Sakura had dropped when she'd fled. A kunai. A metal kunai. A metal kunai with some very weird markings down one side. Shit. Reacting faster than any of the young shinobi could see, Kakashi had the kunai flung upwards at a speed his eternal rival, Guy Maito, would have been impressed by. Apparently he was just in time as the offending article literally exploded with electrical energy, Lightning chakra shooting out from it to the surrounding treetops and into the clouds above.

The rather dramatic and horrifying moment was cut short by Naruto's "Well, shit! All that planning! Fuck!" and the sound of Kakashi's egg timer finally going off. No-one really noticed for a minute though, as they were still marvelling at the light show Naruto's kunai was still giving off as it travelled higher and higher.

"Well, that's the end of the test," Kakashi announced, finally having taken note of his blaring alarm, "looks like none of you have a bell, so…" He was cut off by a slight tinkling sound and saw that Naruto had just thrown two bells to his companions. Looking down, he confirmed that he still had the originals attached to his belt.

"We make our own bells, Kakashi-sensei." Naruto announced, gaining quiet nods from the others.

"What, you think you're being cool?" Kakashi asked, "The objective was to get _these_ bells. I'm not passing you guys on a technicality just because metal boy over there thought of another thing he can make with his bloodline."

"Well what about passing us for working as a team?" Sakura asked, "That was the whole point of this test wasn't it?"

Slowly Kakashi nodded, "Seems you figured out the clue then, good. Congratulations on passing. However there was one other part to this test." Kakashi withdrew a roll of ninja wire from his jounin vest. "The one who didn't get a bell, the one who never even touched a bell, gets tied to a training post and watches the others eat…" Sakura had the decency to look mildly afraid.

**Hours Later**

"Kakashi! Turning up an hour late is one thing, but over a day late? What's the excuse?" Hiruzen Sarutobi was torn between incredulity and amusement at watching his jounin squirm.

"Mah, mah. I had to put their test off for a day." Kakashi explained, hoping the Hokage would let it slide. "They passed, by the way."

"I'm glad you finally get to lead a team, I think the experience will be good for you. Now, what happened that you had to postpone a genin test by a full day?"

**Outside the Hokage Tower**

Naruto decided that he'd go tell his oji-san about his latest accomplishment. Creating a new jutsu, passing a jounin's test and getting Sasuke-teme to agree to do something that benefitted others all in one day! Well, Sasuke's helping others had the bonus of helping himself so Naruto wasn't too sure that that could be completely classed as an entirely selfless and out-of-character act, but he was positive it wouldn't take long to get the broody emo out of the boy's system. What would be left when he did was anybody's guess, but still…

**"YOU DID WHAT TO NARUTO?"**

On the other hand, his oji-san sounded busy, maybe he'd tell Ayame-nee-chan about it first over a bowl of ramen. Yeah, that sounded a lot safer


	5. A Prank Pulled

Team training on team 7 was not going as well as Kakashi had planned. He'd first tried them all on trust exercises, but Sasuke had refused to participate, saying they were a waste of time that could be better spent training. Normally, had he been motivated or back in ANBU, Kakashi would have slapped the boy around for an hour or two before dumping him in the hospital to recover and having him transferred or arrested for insubordination, now however he just wanted to get the whole mess of his 'sensei' duties over with as quickly as possible. That and the boy had the backing of the entire civilian council and, whilst they couldn't actively interfere in ninja affairs, they could make life a lot more difficult and annoying if they didn't get what they wanted. Next had come the sparring matches, which despite his efforts to encourage a friendly rivalry amongst the team, always ended the same way; Sasuke would effortlessly thrash Sakura unless the girl gave up before the match even started, Naruto's bloodline prevented him from pretty much any attempt the others made to harm him and Naruto refused outright to fight Sakura in case she got hurt. That was when he'd had the bright idea of asking them all to share their collective knowledge to build trust and hopefully allow them to better work together knowing what the others could do.

Sakura hadn't any specific ninja expertise to share apart from knowledge, tactics and chakra control, being civilian raised. Kakashi had her set up puzzles and scenarios for the other two to solve, hopefully giving them a better appreciation of tactics and logical thinking. That had proved that Sasuke's title of 'genius' had not been for anything academic as he failed to grasp most of the puzzles, but tended to be good at the battle-scenarios. It had also shown just how far outside of the proverbial box Naruto's thinking was. Kakashi was fairly certain the boy had his own, separate box within which he thought, which would definitely explain some of the 'gaps' in the boy's thought processes and ideas.

Sasuke had a lot to offer in terms of some low ranked fire jutsu and the Uchiha taijutsu style. Getting them out of the boy had been like getting blood out of a stone, and only accomplished when Kakashi proved that he already knew the techniques and fighting style and so could teach the others them anyway. No way was Sasuke letting 'Uchiha' techniques be taught by a non-Uchiha, so if they were going to be taught anyway it'd better damn well be him doing it. He couldn't even complain about 'Clan Techniques' being shared to non-clan-members as those only related to things directly affected by Bloodlines, such as the Hyuuga's Gentle Fist Taijutsu or the Akimichi's special pill formulae.

Naruto, it turned out, was a goldmine of information. The unfortunate fact was that most of the stuff he knew was metallurgy-based or related to his bloodline. He had his kyujutsu, but that didn't really interest the others, and he had the seals he'd managed to learn. That really interested the others at first, until they realised it involved exact memorisation and replication of seemingly random scribbles just to learn the basic forms, and then hundreds of hours of theory before they could competently manipulate or redesign them. Kakashi had had them memorising the basic forms of all of the seals anyway as they could prove useful in the future, which had led to the amusing sight of Sasuke and Sakura sat copying various seals onto tags, before taking them to Naruto for inspection. Naruto's various outbursts at what they produced had the jounin giggling behind his book. "What the hell is this supposed to be, teme?" "Ne, good effort Sakura-chan but this tag won't go off for two weeks after it's activated." and "Teme, are you trying to kill us all?" whilst backing away hurriedly were his current favourites, though he was still curious as to how dangerous Sasuke's sealing tag could have been to incite that last reaction. He'd kept that particular tag for inspection and Naruto had been particularly wary about getting anywhere near it, even when Kakashi had promised not to activate it under any circumstances. He'd still memorised it for future reference, after all, ninja could do wonders with dangerous things.

Amongst everything else, that had led to today. Sasuke's turn to teach. Having gotten bored with correcting taijutsu forms, the boy had started on one of the minor jutsu his family used to train up their proficiency in fire style jutsu. Katon: Kakyu (Fire Style: Fireball), was a much toned down version of the Goukakyu or Grand Fireball, and meant to be the introductory jutsu all Uchiha's learnt before progressing up to it's big brother. It was probably the first time in the entire history of the technique that this'd happened.

"Try it again Naruto." Kakashi said as he stepped up to right behind the boy. Naruto nodded and began forming hand seals. It happened again. "Once more." Kakashi said, stunned despite himself. It happened again. "Okay, you can stop now." Kakashi told the orange-clad genin as he looked out onto their training field. What was once a small, smooth expanse of grass was now littered with small, orange, fireball-shaped statuettes. Sasuke walked over to one and picked it up. It was about a foot long and six inches wide but felt strangely light. He tapped it and it gave off a smooth, low note of sound. "They're hollow," he announced, "and slightly warm."

Kakashi walked over and stared at the object in his student's hand. "It looks like…"

"Phoenix eggs." Sakura, who had been strangely quiet throughout the whole ordeal, spoke up and then reddened in embarrassment at her outburst when everyone turned to look at her. "My mother used to tell me stories when I was young about mythical creatures and one was a story about a magical fire bird that gained immortality by being reborn into it's own freshly-laid egg the moment it dies. These look exactly how I imagined the eggs to look." Her piece said, Sakura then went off to look at a different fireball-egg thing before anyone could comment on her embarrassing outburst.

Kakashi gave Naruto a disapproving stare when he turned around. "Don't think I didn't see that. Recall your clone, now, before you take advantage of your teammate in her moment of weakness and irreparably damage the bonds of trust I've been working on between you all."

Naruto grumbled but did as he was asked. It hadn't taken much to make a small bronze bird-like creature, he was sure he could have gotten it inside one of the 'eggs' and ready to break out before Sakura or Sasuke noticed. Still he filed that away for later, a good prank can be used on anyone, after all.

"Has this happened before?" Kakashi asked the boy, "A jutsu not behaving as it should?"

"All the time!" Naruto practically shouted back, "First my Henge always comes out shiny, then my bushin just won't work, like, at all! And my Kawarimi acts all weird!"

"Okay." Kakashi thought for a minute. "Lets start with the Kawarimi." As the others turned to look at Naruto he subtly lifted his headband from over his left eye.

Naruto made the usual hand sign for the technique and began channeling his chakra. He performed it perfectly, as far as Kakashi could tell. He moulded the chakra, sent it out to latch on to an object, leapt towards it and manipulated the chakra to shift his and the target's places. However, instead of an instant replacement between the boy and say, a log, Naruto was yanked towards one end of the training ground and one of his distant fireball statuettes shot up and smashed him in the face, shattering itself on impact.

"Hunh," Kakashi grunted as he replaced his headband before anyone could see, "well, there was nothing wrong with the way you performed the technique." He announced to Naruto as the boy came stomping back over. He thought for a minute before digging around in the back of his pouches. "Alright, lets try this, Sakura, Sasuke, get over here too." When they approached he held up a set of four pieces of card. "This is chakra paper. Expensive and difficult to produce, however if you are going to advance in ninjutsu they are indispensable for cutting down on time spent training. When you channel chakra through them they react to your natural affinities, like so." Kakashi held a single sheet in his right hand, which immediately curled up into a ball and then spontaneously erupted into flames.

"The crinkling shows that I have a very strong Lightning affinity, whilst the flames show a secondary affinity for fire. The other effects are; crumbling to dust signifying earth, becoming soggy signifying water, or being cut, signifying wind. Now, Sasuke, Sakura, you two go first then we'll find out if my guess about Naruto is right."

Eager to see what affinity they were, Sasuke and Sakura each took a proffered piece of paper. Sasuke's, once he began channeling chakra, almost immediately copied his teachers, however it only crinkled up slightly and a small fire appeared in the upper corner, slowly making it's way down the sheet. Sakura's began crumbling to dust from one side and moistening from the other. Nodding as if this was all expected, Kakashi offered the final piece of the paper to Naruto. As soon as Naruto touched the paper, the entire sheet gave of a noise like a 'tshinnnnggggg' and turned entirely to plate metal. Kakashi's wide-eyed stare was only further enhanced by Naruto's declaration of "Uh, I hadn't even started yet…" When Naruto finally did get round to channeling his chakra into the sheet of metal a large gash tore up two thirds of the way from the bottom and sparks began racing across it's surface.

"Huh, wind and lightning then." Kakashi responded in a daze.

"Sensei, what does the metal transformation thing mean?" Sakura asked.

"Um, well, I'm not sure." Kakashi responded truthfully, "The last person to have such an abnormal reaction to chakra paper was the Shodaime Hokage, whose sheet famously turned into a block of wood. Although it does give me an idea about the Kawarimi problem. Naruto, what do you know about magnetism and electromagnetism?"

"Uhhhh…. They're both really hard to spell?" The blonde knucklehead responded with a cheesy grin. Cue face palm from Sasuke and Kakashi, and Sakura's cry of "BAKA!"

"Basically, you know how gravity pulls you down to earth? Magnetism pulls or pushes certain metals together in the same sort of way. These metals, even if they aren't already magnetic can be made magnetic by running electricity through them. I think that's what you end up doing when you try and do the Kawarimi." Kakashi explained.

"So… what does that mean?" Naruto asked.

"I don't know, though you could try experimenting with the idea if you wanted to make more jutsu for your Metaruton. Anyway, I'm going to go report this to the Hokage so you guys can take the rest of the day off. Meet by the bridge over there at eight tomorrow and we'll do our first mission. Bye!"

**The Next Day**

Kakashi was, once again, three hours late to their meeting. This time, however, Naruto knew the actual reason why. Naruto had finally found out where Kakashi lived. Kakashi had arrived home late the previous night, having been assigned night guard duty at the village gates for the next month on top of his regular duties as a punishment for his offences against one genin Uzumaki Naruto. Apparently, whilst breaking in to the child's apartment building in the unfounded belief of traitorous intent on the boy's behalf was a morally ambiguous but somewhat legally acceptable course of action given the evidence at hand, then dragging him off to get mind-dived by three Yamanaka did not sit well with the current village leader. That was why he'd barely looked around himself as he'd returned early that morning and collapsed for a short nap.

Waking up, Kakashi's first thought was that his apartment was on fire. Feeling no heat, further inspection revealed that, no every surface was painted a vivid glaring orange, not aflame as he'd thought. A quick wash with a water jutsu further revealed that all of the hard surfaces were covered in a further layer of bronze with a chibi version of him reading his book and masturbating inlaid in a silvery metal at various intervals. Groaning at the time, lack of sleep and his new decor, Kakashi decided to get to the heart of the matter and just go to his team's meeting, hopefully to convince his young charge to undo his prank. Goals set, he hyped himself up on as much coffee and instant energy sachets as he could find and set off. His habit of leaving via the window unfortunately resulted in him missing the rather tasteless decoration adorning his front door. Said decoration caused his elderly neighbour Mrs. Yukima to have a severe shock, not to mention brought on one of her funny turns and earned him a hard slap across the face at their next encounter.

He arrived at the bridge to find Sasuke running through a taijutsu kata, Sakura staring at Sasuke with a dreamy expression and Naruto balancing a kunai. Said kunai was somewhere between twenty and twenty two feet vertically above his head under no visible means of support, Kakashi's only clue that Naruto was doing anything was the look of utter concentration on his upturned face. Finding his entrance had gone unnoticed, Kakashi decided to go for drama, his mind under the influence of a massive sugary energy rush, and Shushin'ed atop the floating kunai. The added weight rocketed the knife and himself down until he was balanced only a few inches over his genin's face. "Ohayo!" he shouted in greeting.

Sasuke and Sakura just stared at their sensei, balanced perfectly on a knife floating just above their teammate's face. Naruto was about to respond when he heard something rip and Kakashi and the kunai dropped an inch closer. Slightly flaring his chakra, Naruto dived out of the way as his teacher was propelled upwards a few feet before dropping back down to earth. "Morning team," Kakashi said once he was back on solid ground, "Sasuke, good form but watch your elbow doesn't move too far out of line on the third combination, Naruto good to see you working on chakra control that was an interesting technique, Sakura excellent meditation technique I could hardly hear your breathing, it is nice to see someone keeping up the obscure, traditional stealth practices. Right, missions!" So saying he marched the three dazed looking preteens in the direction of the Hokage tower. "Oh, by the way Naruto, I need you to fix up my apartment and replace the kunai holster you just ripped. Anyway, yes, D-Ranks!"

The group of stunned individuals following a somewhat hyper adult left the bridge before gravity could reassess it's hold on several objects. Fortunately there was no one directly underneath them when they landed but a passing group of civilians were quite disturbed when twenty or so kunai and shuriken embedded themselves in the bridge at high speed, seemingly out of nowhere.

The team's first D-Rank mission, unfortunately did not live up to Naruto's grand expectations. Saving princesses from outlaws and missing nin would have to wait, apparently until they'd painted some houses and weeded a garden or two first, as was befitting trained soldiers of their stature. Upon massive protest, and being still slightly out of it, Kakashi relented and explained to them something normally left to the seasoned genin to puzzle out themselves. D-Rank missions were, in fact, supposed to be used as training exercises. Naruto had been assigned the job of painting a house with Sakura whilst Kakashi and Sasuke set about weeding the garden. Well, Sasuke weeded, Kakashi just read his book giggling to himself and slowly coming down from what was turning out to be his three-hour-long sugar high. As they were meant to be training exercises, Kakashi had Sasuke individually burning out each weed he came across with minutely directed fire jutsu, with himself on hand to provide water jutsu in case of an uncontrolled garden fire. Sakura, on the other hand, was attempting to train her water nature by making paint flow from the can next to her to the wall. Naruto had, in his opinion, the most fun job. After laying down a strip of iron around the circumference of the house, he was slowly learning to control his magnetic jutsu by propelling himself up and down the wall with a brush to smooth out the paint Sakura applied. His first attempts had not gone so well and had ended up with him floating a few hundred feet in the air and too afraid to come down again. He was getting better now though, and with sheer determination, had managed to restrain himself to stay within at least eight feet of the roof at his highest surge. Sakura was doing well, apart from a few minor incidents where she managed to hit Naruto instead of the wall with her paint, but the boy just laughed it off. Sasuke was also progressing nicely and had only needed Kakashi's interference when the flaming compost heap started to get out of hand.

Kakashi dismissed the team when his headache started making him see spots. The group, somewhat amicably began walking off together. Words were not spoken but they didn't immediately shun each others company as they had before. Normally that would have been enough to put their teacher in a good mood, but sugar-rush-depression was kicking in and he had to go lie down for a while.

Naruto, remembering his sensei's demands to remove his prank from before the 'mission', formed several of his Ari Bushin and sent them off with the instructions to re-absorb all of the metal from Kakashi's apartment. Something about those orders sent a small twinge of foreboding through his mind for some reason. Meh, he'd find out later, right now he'd settle for asking Sakura-chan out


	6. A Short Filler

Naruto's apartment building was one of Konoha's unofficial no-go-zones for the majority of the populace. It was structured in an oval formation, rising six stories high, explosions non-withstanding, and delving four stories underground at it's lowest. The top two floors were kept mostly clear and mainly housed the experimental or exceedingly dangerous creations of Naruto's assorted collection. The tried and tested creations, however, were spread throughout the rest of the complex. For the most part these were curiosities, models or 'concept' devices that were of little to no use or were too complex/uneconomical for production. Several attempts at perpetual motion machines were in an old bedroom on the third floor, quietly spinning away, the old Ororchimaru statue clone from the front garden meandered around the second floor leeching occasional supplies of chakra from various experiments and generally tidying the place up a bit, the ground floor walls hung with thousands of attempts at weapon design and production from crossbows and nun-chucks to daggers and staves in a glittering display of shiny death. Metaru Bushin moved from room to room, some organising, some taking stock, others running through quiet experiments. The basement floors were another story and encompassed Naruto's semi-private training grounds, 'forge' and bedroom.

That was the story before Kakashi's impromptu home invasion had bypassed the external security and set Naruto's paranoia off the scale. After all, if one person could get in uninvited so could others, others who might not necessarily be as friendly. So when Sarutobi Hiruzen approached the complex for a surprise visit, he was shocked to say the least. The fence had grown to nearly double it's original size and now literally _menaced_ with serrated spikes like an overgrown iron rosebush. The gates were now double layered, the inner ones opening only after the outers had clanged shut behind him. The guard statues inside the grounds no longer remained formed up along the main path but roved across the grounds in an erratic and random pattern that left seemingly few blind spots at any one time. Several were even patrolling in the air over the centre of the complex on their Musasabi, Naruto's newfangled bows clearly visible to the Hokage even at this distance. Once inside, Sarutobi was immediately on edge as what appeared to be several thousand diminutive eyes watched him move to the stairs and down towards his goal. A scurrying and shuffling could be heard inside the walls as the old man passed, almost too silent to hear that betrayed the presence of even more of the minute watchers.

Arriving at Naruto's living quarters in the second basement level, a nervous Hokage was relieved to see his favourite genin sat calmly at his dining room table, his cloak slung over the back of his chair and grease spots splattered all over his jumpsuit as he tinkered with an electric motor whilst trying to simultaneously eat a pot of instant ramen. "Naruto!" he called out to the boy and had to suppress a grin as the child jumped, sending broth and noodles all over his little gadget. "Oji-san!" Naruto exclaimed before leaping to hug the old man.

"Oof!" The Hokage gasped as the child's prodigious weight crashed into his midriff and threatened to squeeze his bones to dust.

"Hey, Oji-san! Thanks for visiting, it's been lonely since Ten-chan got sent on that mission! What's up? Come look at some of the new jutsu I've been working on. Kakashi-sensei's been really helpful giving me ideas and things! I can do magnetikiky stuff now, and Kakashi-sensei helped me come up with a melty jutsu thing but I haven't been able to figure out how I did it since then…" Hiruzen grinned and let himself be dragged off to Naruto's training ground as the boy talked about anything and everything that entered his head. Same old Naruto. After several demonstrations and a discussion about the idea of a magnetically powered crossbow, Hiruzen brought up the reason for his visit.

"Naruto" he said as the boy wound down from his talk, "I need to talk to you about your chakra."

"Oh. What about it?" Naruto asked

"Do you remember when Kakashi tested your affinities and the paper you held turned into a metal sheet?" Hiruzen asked, confusing Naruto with the seeming change of topic.

"Yeah," Naruto said, nodding in recollection.

"Well, that sort of thing has only ever happened once before and makes you a very special case. The last person to have such a reaction was our own Shodaime Hokage and his paper turned into a sheet of bark, from a willow tree if certain accounts are to be believed."

Naruto's eyes lit up, "Wow! That's amazing! Does that mean I have super-powerful chakra? I'm a sure bet for Hokage now!"

Hiruzen grinned, "Calm down," he said plaintively, "Let me explain, normal chakra natures are made up of different combinations of the main five chakra natures. You know about those, correct?"

"Uh… yeah, there's Fire and Wind and Lightning and Water and Earth. I can make conversion seals for all of them." Naruto responded happily.

"Right, well, if you wanted to make chakra with an different nature, say Lava natured chakra, you would have to combine some of the main five to form it, in this case Fire and Earth. The Shodaime, however, was able to create trees using his bloodline. Now can you tell me what nature chakra you think would combine to make Wood?"

"Wood? Uh… Well you'd need Earth, maybe Water as well? No Earth and Water sounds like it'd make Mud release or something… uh… not Fire… Wind's out as well… Lightning to jump start growth? Nah… I don't know." Naruto thought aloud, his brow scrunched up in concentration.

"No one knows." The aged Hokage informed him.

"Huh?"

"No one has ever been able to reproduce the effect, save one person who has the Shodaime's bloodline. It is a chakra nature in and of itself. The Shodaime and his… for lack of a better word, descendant, have found that it, like other natures, can be combined with any of the other five primary chakra natures to create new ones. The Shodaime was reportedly able to combine his Wood release with Fire for Smoke release and Wind for something he called 'Pollen Release' not much is known about that except for rumours that it involves the origin of the Aburame clan's decision to join the village."

Hiruzen smiled at the shocked look on the boy's face as he tried to digest everything he'd just been told. "I'm telling you this because I think your chakra might work in the same way, if what Kakashi informs me of your training session the other day is true. If so then your new 'Magnet Release' is, I suspect, a combination of your Metal release and Lightning chakra. That's why I'd like to run some tests with you this afternoon and ask that you keep me up to date on the jutsu training and experiments you do from now on."

**Several Days Later**

Naruto greeted the bun-haired girl with his trademark huge grin and was immediately pulled against her into a massive hug. She was just returning from another C-Rank border patrol and had run into the blonde outside her family's shop. Her sensei had been picking up a lot of long distance missions lately, in the belief that it would give her team the most experience for the up and coming chunnin exams. Whilst Tenten was all in favour of more experience she missed her cuddly blonde boy-to… friend… damn that was a hard habit not to slip in to. Naruto was babbling on excitedly and she smiled warmly at him, restraining herself from giving him another hug, _father_ was probably watching, ready to tear her away from her poor, lonely, attention-starved Naruto-kun.

"…and then Kakashi-sensei helped me come up with a new technique when he shot a fireball at me, I've got to show you, it's awesome!"

A delightful shudder ran through Tenten's spine at the words, Naruto's techniques were always so se… no delicio… _STOP THAT_ they were pleasant and intriguing, not inappropriate in any way. "New technique? Well then why don't we… wait _fireball_?"

"Yeah it came at me and I thought, 'Oh no, I'm gonna melt,' and then I thought 'That sounds like a good idea' and then it took a butt-load of chakra but I did this!" Naruto said energetically. He started focussing in that adorable way of his. She was so lost in thought that when he melted into a puddle right in front of her it took a minute for the shock to actually reach her. She was about to scream when the shining pool raised up and tendrils of cool metal flowed around her, wrapping around her and holding her in a strong, constrictive prison. Naruto's blonde head flowed out of the mass that held her in place, grinning like a loon it asked; "Whaddaya think, Ten-chan?"

Tenten didn't know what to say, she was trapped, surrounded by and encased in wonderfully beautiful, flowing metal. The thought alone made her squirm but then she realised that this wasn't just metal, this wasn't even just Naruto's metal, this was Naruto's actual body in free flowing metallic form. She was literally _wearing Naruto_!

"Ten-chan?" Naruto gazed at the girl, who hadn't moved for several minutes. "Ten-chan are you okay? Ten… Oh gods, she's fainted! And her nose is bleeding! Oh no, this is all my fault!" Quickly reforming himself into his original shape, he picked up the comatose girl and raced as fast as he could to the hospital.

Later that day, after Tenten had been admitted to the hospital with severe fluid deficiency and Jin had been contacted, Naruto made his way to her room to apologise.

As per Jin's request the doctors had placed restraints on his daughter's bed. It was far from the strangest request they'd ever had to deal with when it came to ninja patients and the man was very insistent. He looked up as Naruto entered the room and had to fight back a groan. His daughter was immediately attempting to break out of the restraining straps.

"NARUTO UZUMAKI! GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE NOW SO I CAN MMMPPHH!"

Jin hastily slapped a hand over her mouth and tried to ignore her attempts at biting through his flesh to make herself heard.

"I'd give her some time, Naruto." he advised the boy.

The boy sadly nodded his head. He was ashamed that he'd managed to somehow make Tenten so angry at him, he didn't know his jutsu would be that dangerous to her. He resolved to make it up to his best friend somehow and left to go to his team's meeting.

Back in the room Jin removed his hand from over his daughter's mouth and waited for the crazy look to fade from her eyes. He was unprepared for the steely determination that followed it, though.

"Father." She said in a flat, even tone that brooked no argument, "Naruto Uzumaki _will_ be mine. He _will_ be the father of your grandchildren. He _will_ make me the happiest woman in history. The longer you keep us apart, the worse it will be when we finally do come together. I hope you realise all of this."

**Hokage Tower**

Naruto arrived to meet his team early. He was feeling depressed, but it was quickly turning to anger at himself. He had made Tenten angry at him. The girl was perhaps the only true friend he had that was his own age. He had to do something to make it up to her. The only problem was he had no idea what he could do. How best could he apologise? To be fair he had no idea what he had done to make her so angry, sure he'd knocked her out but the actual act was kind of fuzzy in his head.

He'd been simmering away for several minutes before his team mates showed up. Sensing the blonde's mood both decided not to comment. Sasuke began his customary 'waiting for Kakashi' workout, attempting to incorporate recently learned jutsu or tactics into his taijutsu style. Sakura, in between watching her crush, began her self imposed training regime trying to boost her chakra reserves. This involved practicing the latest control exercises Kakashi had taught her until she became exhausted, then resting before beginning again. She normally could get three or four 'sets' done before their errant sensei actually arrived and was already showing an improvement after several weeks of practice, the inspiration for her remarkable (to others) change of attitude towards training was something said by her sensei during their initial training. _'Not gonna look my way my ass, Shannaro! I'm not weak! I will be the strongest, sexiest kunoichi to ever come out of this village and then Sasuke-kun will be forced to fall in love with me!'_ A rather scary determination had laid across the girl's shoulders since that day and even Naruto was wise enough to be giving her some space.

Kakashi finally did arrive, looking as tired and run down as ever. He'd really been regressing the past few weeks with little to no sleep. His normally erect silver hair was drooping over his forehead protector, his clothes had accumulated a fair amount of wear and tear, there were severe bags under his eyes and the scent of coffee hung strongly about his person.

The three genin and jounin instructor made their way to the top of the tower for their mission assignment, none really looking forward to an afternoon of picking weeds or some other meaningless task, even if it was 'training in disguise'. Once they were in there it didn't take long for Naruto to blow.

"Dammit old man! Give us a decent mission for once!" The other two genin nodded in agreement, possibly for the first time in their lives had they all been united in a single goal. "We've been painting houses and mending fences for ages, we're ninja for Kami's sake, give us a proper ninja mission!"

Iruka, who was working at the assignment desk now that there were no more classes to teach at the academy, stood up to reprimand the young blonde but the Hokage waved him down.

"Naruto," the elder shinobi said calmly, "if you truly feel you are ready for a higher ranked mission then I will of course oblige. Providing your teammates and sensei feel the same way of course."

Iruka stood up to protest once more but was again silenced by the Hokage, who informed him. "If they are ready for a C-Rank mission then there is no point holding them back and they will rightly progress in their career. If they are not then they will learn valuable lesson about their own limits and Kakashi will be there to support them in any case."

Looking to the team for an answer he saw the three genin nodding readily, Kakashi on the other hand gave a vague nod that could have been assent but could also have been him briefly falling asleep before jerking awake. The Hokage took it as assent. He called to the other room; "You can come in now!"

A drunk man around fifty years old and holding an obscenely large sake bottle stepped into the room. "These are my guards? What the hell? The short one looks ridiculous! The girl looks like she'd faint at the first sign of trouble! That kid looks more likely to cut himself than an enemy! And what the hell's wrong with this guy, he looks dead on his feet! I'm not paying for a team of duffers!" The old man, despite clearly being significantly drunk, proceeded to down even more of his booze.

"I assure you, these shinobi are of the highest caliber." The Hokage smiled warmly at the man. "Kakashi, this mission of course supersedes your guard duties as you will be out of the village for several weeks. You will continue your assigned time when you return."

Kakashi would never admit to jumping for joy, shouting "YIPPEE! I'M FREE!" and falling dead asleep afterwards but did find himself awoken early the next morning when one of the chunin secretaries was reopening the mission office. Apparently the sight had caused Naruto such amusement that he had forgotten to be angry at the old man when he figured out he was actually the shortest of the group


	7. A C Rank Mission

It was early the next morning when Kakashi woke up; cramped, stiff and with a pounding headache; on the floor of the mission assignment room. No one had had the heart to wake the exhausted jounin the day before and had just worked around him. Now, however he as feeling it as his muscles strained in protest. Thanking the chunin who had awoken him on opening the mission room, Kakashi headed to his apartment for supplies before setting off for the main gate. For some reason he was on the receiving end of a slap, courtesy of old Mrs. Yukimo, his neighbour. Strange, he'd thought they got on quite well, she always made him cookies on Yondaime Day and everything. Another mystery for another time.

Kakashi arrived at the gates with several hours to spare… well actually he'd arrived on time for once, but compared to his usual 'tardiness' habit he was very early indeed. Ta-something, the client whatever his name was, was already there and already halfway through a gourd of sake, Sasuke was off to one side, staring at the other two genin of the group. Sakura was… she was attacking Naruto… again, and predictably Naruto was ru - no, waddling away at a surprisingly decent speed, given how his stomach appeared to be distended far enough out to touch his knees.

All of a sudden the blonde was behind him and yelling. Why was he always yelling? His poor head. "Kakashi sensei! Help! She's trying to kill my ramen-baby!"

*Sigh*

**3 hours later**

The group had, at long last set off. For three of them this would be their first time out of Konoha and the furthest they had ever gone from their home. Sakura's rage had abated somewhat, Naruto's body had returned to whatever passed for normality for someone with metal flesh, Sasuke was outwardly as stoic as ever but a small smirk would occasionally creep through his mask of emotionlessness (I checked it out, that's actually a word! English is an awesome language:P), Tazuna had reached the point of inebriation where all things have become highly amusing, and Kakashi was in serious danger of overdosing on headache tablets. It was for this reason that he almost didn't see the trap before they were right on top of it. It was the Uchiha that tipped him off to it really, as the boy sullenly scuffed the dry road with his sandals, sending up small dust clouds with each step _right next to a puddle of water_. He had the briefest of moments to formulate a half-assed plan, which went something along the lines of; _'Ninja, suiton, this close to Konoha? Ambush? For us? Coincidence? Unlikely. After who? Naruto? It's supposed to be a secret. Sasuke? The sharingan? Prepare kawarimi, see who this guy goes after.'_

Naruto was far from the usual bubble of joy and unguided energy. Turns out he _wasn't_ pregnant with Ichiraku ramen, Sakura still ignored him in favour of the emotionless bishounen on their team and what was supposed to be their first awesome mission outside of the village was a complete gip, guarding a drunk, old civil engineer of all things. He was almost at the point of brooding, but fortunately was careful enough not to cross over that line from which there is no return. Then Kakashi-sensei got killed by a puddle. Wait… what?

Two ninja in tattered black cloaks and each wielding a single clawed gauntlet, connected to each other with a spiked chain, emerged from the puddle they had just passed on the road and in barely a few seconds, bisected Kakashi with the chain. "One down," came the gravelly voice from the one on the right as both turned, showing their identical rebreather-covered faces and slashed headbands. As one they charged. Naruto, in a blind panic used the first jutsu that came to mind. He melted into a metallic puddle.

The two attacking ninja halted in their tracks, their eyes, the only visible parts of their faces, widened. The left one growled; "He stole our jutsu."

"He is a student of The Copycat."

The sudden break in their charged allowed Sasuke to pull himself together enough to counterattack. A quick shower of shuriken forced the pair to dodge back and block with their gauntlets, which gave the Uchiha enough distance to hit their chain with a shuriken/kunai combo, effectively nailing it to a tree. The boy smirked briefly before the two detached their claws from the chain and came at him separately.

Naruto, meanwhile had not been idle. After hearing their brief exchange an idea had sparked in his head, one that simply would not leave. As the two prepared to rush Sasuke, an identical pair of ninja, made entirely of metal, and still connected by a spiked chain, erupted from the metal pool on the ground and countered the pair's attacks.

Tazuna could only stare on in horror from behind his diminutive, pink-haired bodyguard as the most bizarre fight he had ever seen took place before his very eyes.

The two ninja were getting more and more freaked out by the metal kid(s?) as all of their attacks got turned against themselves and the dark-haired kid had started putting up a half-decent fight as well. Eventually the left one barrelled through his metal double and turned his eyes on the old man and his pink-haired guardian. "Cover me, I'll take him out and we'll get out of here." He shouted back at his partner. He got two steps forward at most before an arm appeared out of nowhere and clotheslined his neck, knocking him out with almost no effort whatsoever.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura called out, for that is who had appeared, both of their assailants out cold under his arms. "I… I thought… They killed…"

Kakashi adjusted the two dead-weights onto one shoulder so that he could pat the girl reassuringly on the head. "Ne… sorry for scaring you Sakura-chan, but there was something I wanted to check." The cycloptic jounin dumped the two bodies against the base of a tree and began tying them up. "You see it is a bit unusual to find missing-nin so close to a shin obi village, especially one as large and powerful as Konoha. It means that these two, The Demon Brothers of the Mist if I'm not much mistaken, must have been after something or someone, so I replaced myself and hid to watch and see who they went after." At this point he turned a level glare at Tazuna. "We'll get to that in a minute, however before that there is one thing I have to say."

He turned to the two boys, who were looking rather smugly at the two tied-up ninja. "Naruto…" the boy looked up at him, "I think I can guess the answer myself but I'd just like to ask you to make one thing clear to me. What in the holy hell was that all about?"

Said blonde looked up at him sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. "Hehehe… well you see they got kinda freaked out when I did the puddle thing and they said something about copycats so I thought if copying their jutsu, even if I totally didn't and came up with it on my own… gonna have to figure out a way to copyright jutsu or something later… but I thought if I copied _them_ that'd freak them out even more!"

Kakashi nodded "Good thinking but inherently flawed. Your enemies have had a lot of practice being themselves, they have their own styles and will most likely have worked extremely hard to perfect those styles, especially if they have unique weapons like you just saw there. Imitating people just from their looks may throw them off balance momentarily but without the ability to actually copy their style of fighting you are hampering yourself by using an unfamiliar weapon. Those two will have practiced fighting, not only with their claws but working in tandem for years to get to their level of proficiency, even with your clone I'm surprised you cooperated as well as you did."

Naruto scrunched his face up in thought and confusion before asking "What clone Kakashi-sensei?"

The jounin sighed "The other you on the end of the chain that wielded the opposite claw."

"But, sensei that was me as well, so long as I keep connected don't need to make a clone, watch!" With that, Naruto morphed back into the metallic copies of the Demon Brothers, both connected by the gauntlet chain. After a second Naruto's head appeared, warping itself into being out of the top of the chain. "See Kakashi sensei, it's all just me." As he said this, the Naruto head began to move up and down the chain, from one body to the other, then turning and doing rotations around the chain itself. "Oooooh… spinny."

Kakashi looked away from the spectacle and commented "That is one of the more disturbing things I have ever seen. Anyway, Sasuke, I also wanted to say well done to you, with Naruto's help you managed to hold off a pair of Chunin-rated missing-nin, very impressive for a genin." He ignored the sounds Naruto was making behind him as the metal boy increased the speed of his rotations.

"Now, Tazuna, I believe you have some explaining to do." Kakashi turned back to the rapidly paling drunk.

Later, after the whole story had come out, the team had decided to carry on with the mission and Naruto had gotten so dizzy doing his 'roving head' trick that he'd thrown up, the team finally made their way to the shoreline that marked the edge of Fire country. There, waiting for them at the end of a short dock, was a friend of Tazuna's in a tiny rowboat with a small outboard motor attached to the back. That was when they hit a problem.

"No way am I getting in that thing."

"Naruto!"

"Shh… We'll be heard!" The boatman tried to calm the rapidly angering, and loudening (also an actual word, I'n not making this shit up!) kunoichi down.

"Fine. Naruto!" Sakura continued in a stage whisper, not much quieter than her earlier yell.

"No! Look at it! That thing's about to fall apart at the seams. In case you hadn't noticed I weigh quite a bit more than your average awesome ninja and I'm not spending another afternoon stuck at the bottom of a scummy mass of water! This mission has been one let-down after another from the start and this is the final bloody straw!"

"Naruto." Kakashi decided to intervene. "There's nothing that can be done and this is the only way we can get where our client needs to go. It's not like we can fix up this man's boat…"

"Correction, sensei, you can't, _I_ can." Naruto interrupted.

"Fine, if we let you fix up the boat, will you please let us get on with the mission?"

Naruto looked to the others to check that they were happy for him to continue as well. Sasuke was looking off into space, Sakura was grinding her teeth at him, Tazuna was looking a little confused and sort of pleadingly at him, whilst the boatman was just looking confused. Naruto sighed. "Okay." He crouched down and touched the rim of the boat. A dull sheen of metal began to spread from the point of contact until it completely covered the vessel. Nodding to himself, Naruto gingerly stepped down into the boat. He got an approving nod from the boat's owner and the rest of the team gingerly stepped down onto the fresh, new deck.

"Happy now, Naruto?" Kakashi asked. "Can we get going?"

"One second, Kakashi-sensei." Naruto replied, before announcing to no-one in particular; "Up periscope!"

Amazingly a periscope flowed up smoothly from a hatch in the deck that hadn't been there a second before. Everyone stared wide-eyed as Naruto folded down two handles and proceeded to look into the eyepiece for a few seconds, turning this way and that, before he pulled away, nodding to himself and ordered "Down periscope!" The tube retreated back into the deck of the boat, but before anyone could ask what he thought he was doing, he crouched down and tugged at a handle that emerged by his feet. A trap-door opened to reveal, not the seawater beneath them, but a set of steps on a harsh incline. Naruto stood up once more and looked to the shocked faces of those around him.

"After you." He announced cheerfully


End file.
